Locals have expressed skepticism that a sordid yarn claiming the house was haunted by members of the Frecks family (the Internet rumor claimed a number of the wealthy family's members died in an affair that involved fraternal adultery, exile, suicides, and the mysterious death of the family patriarch) has any historical basis, and a 1965 description of Red House's name origin lists the original owner of the house as being "unknown." Of the numerous ghost stories that are reputed in Red House, the Frecks story is not one of them. The house was a restaurant and hotel in its last years and, like most others in the town, was demolished in the early 1990s. A 1953 column in "The Bradford Era" made note of a legend that the house was originally owned by a native American at the time logging began in the area; a variant of the story, printed in another newspaper in 1962 and reprinted in 1972, states that only the door of the house was painted red.