In an old historic Victorian home less than 1100 feet from the Rio Grande in Southeast Brownsville lies the Rabb Plantation home or to what many people call, “La casa de colores.” This home is now part of the visitors center for the Sabal Palm Sanctuary which is a wildlife refuge for many diverse species of birds, insects, reptiles, and small mammals.
Frank Rabb
The land where the house sits was originally known as Rancho San Tomas and owned by Mifflin Kenedy from Pennsylvania. During the late 1800’s Mr. Kenedy then conveyed the land to his stepdaughter Maria Vicente Stack who had a daughter named Lilian May who then married Frank Rabb from Corpus Christi. The house was built in 1892 and would serve as the headquarters of a sugar cane plantation that sat over 20,000+ acres and oversiew . After Frank Rabb died in the 1930’s the house and land was bestowed to his second wife Margaret (Peggy) McCormik. Margaret lived on the house till her death in 1937. The estate was bought by the Ben F. Vaughan, Jr out of Corpus Christi and used it as a cultural center.
Clipping from 1999 from Brownsville Herald
There was a period where the house was rented to a native american tribe who painted all the different rooms in different colors, thus the name “Casa de Colores” was born. It is said that the Native Americans would have weekly tribal meetings in their yard and perform all sorts of rituals and even sacrifice animals to the spirit gods, on occasion the public was allowed to attend. The Native Americans left sometime during the late 1990’s and the house became abandoned.
Casa de Colores abandoned early 2000s
Orbs
Wandering Spirit?
It is said that after the house became abandoned, people that ventured there started seeing strange apparitions and strange noises coming from different rooms. One person named Andy recalls a strange evening while adventuring to the house, “We went one time to smoke some ganja, it was the thing back in the day, as we were walking towards the house we heard a loud scream from inside and one of the windows started opening and shutting slamming hard, naturally we were scared out of our minds and took off. I remember looking back as we drove away and the door was gone, not open…just gone, and you could see light turning on and off, like a light switch, keep in mind there was no power to the house, it was first and last time I went out there.” Could it be possible that the place can be haunted? After all it is not the first time I hear this from someone, I recall my brother long time telling me about the “house of colors”, little did I know that he would be referring to this same exact house.
The Plantation was renovated in 2012 and is now part of the Gorgas Science Foundation that has put in a lot of effort to conserve this wonderful home that links the past to the present. They are more than 5 miles of nature trails with wildlife viewing areas and is home to the only native palms found in Texas. The Sanctuary is open 7 days a week from 8am to 5pm. To find out more information you can visit their official website at www.sabalpalmsanctuary.org and their facebook page on www.facebook.com/sabalpalmsanctuary
If you decided to stop by, make sure to bring a friend. You can also now book one of the available rooms at AirBNB below.
The Native Americans where there till mid 90s. The reason I say this, because I’ve spent a couple of nights there in the house while they were there. I was in girl scouts at time. This was like 95-96. 3 of them were caring for the house at the time. It was a wonderful experience. They had horses on the property, we got to see so many animals and interact with them. Got to see their hut where they would cleanse and other things. A whole lot of us slept either on the 2nd floor balcony or inside. (so we wouldn’t be bothered by wondering travelers). There was a lil erieness inside a certain room, but I paid no mind. So interesting to see that they have renovated it. I need to go back and see this place as an adult.