public

Heavily Investigated

The upstairs rooms are where most people swear something still lives — or won't leave. William Moeur (The restaurant's name was completely independent of the original homeowners) died by the fireplace in 1929; Mary followed decades later in an upstairs bedroom. What came after — bordello, alleged murders, whispered overdoses — seems to have soaked into the walls. Guests report lamps swinging unprompted, silverware hurled across the room, and ghostly figures drifting past windows. Bring a date, they say, and the activity sharpens: something up there, it seems, takes exception to romance.

Built in 1910, the W.A. Moeur House was the home of William Moeur — civic pillar, first Tempe school board member, and Maricopa County Board of Supervisors chairman. His brother Benjamin served as Arizona's governor from 1933–1937. William died here in 1929; Mary in the 1940s. The house then passed through less distinguished hands — boarding house, rumored bordello — before Patty St. Claire converted it into Casey Moore's Oyster House in 1986. History, as it does, kept the interesting parts.