The following oversized drawing (click on the image to open a full-sized, legible version in your browser) is a proposed layout for Disneyland's "Ghost House" as envisioned by Ken Anderson in 1957. This layout, first published by "The E Ticket" Magazine in 2004, shows many scenes and effects that eventually evolved into what is now known as The Haunted Mansion.

Ken Anderson's Ghost House

A brief overview of the proposed walking tour follows: First, guests would enter a hall with a grand staircase, and from the corner, "Harry the Arm" appears to whisk away the proper Disneyland tour guide, leaving the viewers to be led by a more sinister creature. Exiting through a sliding panel, guests next travel through a portrait gallery into a library (also called the "Lonesome Ghosts" room), which contains shelves of books and sinister paintings. Existing through a secret passage, guests next enter a two-story gallery where ghosts chase each other over the guests' heads along a balcony as "false faces" watch the visitors' every move. Exiting into yet another secret passage, guests walk through a narrow corridor until they appear at the doorway to a bedroom, into which they would walk to peer into an eerie bathroom diorama and watch a spirit appear and disappear before their eyes.

Moving into an adjacent salon, the guests peer out the large bay windows into a graveyard in the bayou beyond, only to encounter the feared Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow fame. A fireplace slides out of the way allowing guests to exit the salon into an octagonal-shaped room surrounded by windows through which the stormy night can be seen. In the center of the room sits a large pit, into which ghosts are gathering as if preparing for a big event. Moving further, guests walk down a hallway (accompanied by traveling ghosts) and enter another large octagonal room, this one walled by mirrors. In each mirror, famous (and infamous) monsters and creatures appear and disappear, as if preparing to enter the grand hall with the visitors.

Moving into the grand hall, we find that we have been invited to a wedding ball, as ghosts from all of history join together to celebrate the ghastly nuptials. Rain and lightning flash as the groom takes his bride by the head, and lifts it off of her body as the assembled creatures grow more and more agitated during the wild celebration. Finally exiting this climactic experience, guests find themselves in a trophy hall of strange and unnatural creatures, culminating in a final secret sliding bookcase which leads to a secret stone passageway out of the house, into a souvenir shack which peddles buttons, toys, and "wedding cake" as a refreshment.

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