Cave House Still Attracts Curiosity

It's most commonly called the Cave House.  It's an odd looking structure in the base of a hill west of downtown Tulsa.  There are dozens of stories about its history.   Some are fact, many are fabrication, but The News On 6's Rick Wells reports the cave house owner loves to tell them all.

It's got to be one of Tulsa's curiosities.  There's nothing else like it. Linda Collier owns the Cave House in the 1600 block of Charles Page Boulevard.

"Always wanted to see inside.  That's exactly why I ended up buying it.  I just wanted to see inside," said Linda Collier.

She fell in love with the place.

Originally, it opened in the 1920's as the Cave Garden, a chicken restaurant.  An often heard tale was that it was a front for a bootlegging hangout that operated in a secret room, behind a false wall.

"They would come in go up toward the fireplace, turn left down some stairs, then it went on in under the hill," said Linda Collier.

Of course, there's no evidence of the false wall or the stairs, but that's the story.

"The more mystery you can create here the better.  I say bring it on," said Linda Collier.

She says it might be haunted.  Someone added on in the1940s and turned it into a house.  Collier doesn't live here, but she's furnished it.  She collects sticks and uses them to decorate.  She even used them to make the bed.  The sticks are everywhere.

People have started calling her the stick lady.  Collier says there were two women who lived in the Cave House. One gathered rags:  the rag lady.  The other picked up lost keys:  the key lady.

Another interesting feature is a slide from the bedroom into the sitting room next door.