Davidson Mullgardt is standing on the steps of the Lemp Mansion in Benton Park.

"I've been haunted by this place almost my entire life," says Mullgardt, a high school English teacher turned historian and tour guide entrepreneur,

Mullgardt's haunting is of the psychological variety. He admits to being a bit monomaniacal when it comes to Lemp family history.

The mansion, on the other hand, is haunted by supernatural beings.

If you believe that sort of thing.

"I do believe there is something here," says author Stephen Walker, who has written a book about the Lemp mansion's "haunted" history. "I had an interesting experience at a seance here in the rathskeller. A table bounced 18 inches off the floor."

That bouncy table led to a group of previously "giggling young ladies" fleeing for their lives in terror, Walker said.

Given the mansion's macabre past, it's not surprising those young women were easily startled.

The Lemp family endured four, possibly five, suicides including several inside the mansion.

The suicides are merely part of the family's sad saga, a tale of sex, violence and scandal that fascinates many to this day.

Especially Mullgardt.

"I'm really into the Lemp family, particularly Edwin Lemp," Mullgardt said. "He was quiet and private, but on the periphery of everything in St. Louis."

Mullgardt's "Lempophilia" led him to take a sabbatical from his day job teaching English at Soldan High School.

Instead, with the help of Walker, he's organizing The Lemp Reality Tour, a guided bus tour of Lemp-specific places around St. Louis.

Nattily attired in a suit the color of inexpensive vanilla ice cream, the bow-tied Mullgardt addresses 35 Lemp tourists in front of the family mansion at 2 p.m. on Halloween.

I am among them.

We file onto a bus, pass around some candy and head to the first of about a dozen stops over three hours - the Old Courthouse downtown.

Here, Lemp Brewery President William "Billy" Lemp Jr. was divorced by wife, Lillian Handlan, also known as the "Lavender Lady."

The trial, which mixed high society with low behavior, was outrageous enough to merit international coverage.

Sitting in the courtroom where the testimony was heard, Walker, Mullgardt and lavender-clad actress Anne Louise Williams (playing the role of Handlan) engage in a bit of role playing, reading verbatim from the trial transcript.

John Pellarin, an Old Courthouse docent, steps in to add some salacious detail.

According to Pellarin, life at the Lemp mansion included numerous cockfights, along with William sleeping with a pistol under his pillow pointed in Lillian's direction.

"When the butler moved too slowly he would pull his gun out and lay it on the table," Pellarin tells us.

William also liked to wave his pistol when stuck in the 19th century version of a traffic jam.

Our next major tour stop is the Missouri History Museum.

Here, we get a chance to view brewery founder Adam Lemp's original beer kettle, which sits right next to his portrait.

"Edwin Lemp donated it," Mullgardt points out.

The exhibit also features vintage Lemp advertisements and beer steins.

A sign below the kettle tells us that Adam Lemp arrived from Germany in the 18th century with "little more than a lager beer recipe and a willingness to work."

He succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.

That success, however, may have done succeeding generations no favors.

We see that up close at the final stop, the Lemp Mausoleum at Bellefontaine Cemetery.

We are joined here by guide Richard Lay, who Mullgardt identifies as one of the cemetery's vice presidents.

On the way to the mausoleum, our bus rumbles through the "beer baron" section of the cemetery. The monuments here are ridiculously large.

The Busch mausoleum has "Veni Vidi Vici" (Latin for "I came, I saw, I conquered") written on the front. The Lemp Mausoleum is not quite as in-your-face - just four white pillars and the family name written above the door.

Mullgardt escorts us in. Everyone is quiet.

I ask him how it feels to be so close to Edwin, who is something of a kindred spirit.

He tells me he was initially apprehensive, given the family's troubled history.

But rather than just being morbidly interested, people have been almost reverent.

"It feels good to have other people experience it," Mullgardt says. "I love sharing it."

For more information on the Lemp Reality Tour call (314) 706-6183. Tickets are $35. Reservations are required. Call for upcoming dates.