La Casa de los Tubos (The House of Tubes)

0:20 A ghoolfriends, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, I am still your host and you are still listening to Sustal, the podcast of paranormal folklore from Latin American and Hispanic cultures, and thank you for doing so. By the way, if you are a best girlfriend on Patreon, you already know you get the video version of this episode, and all patrons get episodes early and ad free, so I mean, hey, right off the bath, feel free to check it out because also speaking of, we do have a movie night this weekend or a Susto virtual hangout. Still figuring out what exactly we'll be doing. You know, sometimes we just hang out and talk, we play games, so watch a movie, a show something, so you know, all the details go down on the Patreon, So if you're interested, feel free to check that out. There not too many updates. I will say I had a fun, fun time at the Psychic and Spiritfest in San Antonio with the Curious Twins at Victoria's Blackswan In if you made it out there.

1:15 First of all, to all of the presenters and the vendors, especially the people that sat out there for the whole event, bless your hearts and your souls for being out there, for sticking out the heat. I did not table this year, after all, I did go do my presentation, which hello obviously smash hit. I had a great time with it. It seemed to get a positive response from people, so I will be posting the video of my presentation, of course, also for patrons. But it was such a good time. It was worth it to be out there, to see all the really cool vendors, to listen to the other presenters speak and share. I got my aura photo taken and a psychic presented or read it to me, and honestly she read me down to It was really interesting for someone to see directly into my soul that way.

1:57 And Annabel the Doll was also there. I did not get a chance to see her. The lines were very long, and I didn't want to pull that card. I don't even know if I could have. I'm saying this, but I didn't want to be like, well, i'm a presenter, let me just get ahead of the line. That probably is not what would have happened either way, which is why I said, you know what, I may regret it, but I'm going to sit it out because again, lines are so long, and it was very hot, and by that point we had already been there for like half of the day, so I was ready to kind of get back home, shower and relax. But speaking of spending the day in San Antonio, I did post a vlog of me and Jeff's day over in San Antonio, so if you like to check it out, we did a couple spooky things, because what a beautiful segue me, good job me, pat on the back. Susto is now available on YouTube and YouTube Music, which means the podcast itself is going to be published on YouTube as well. I don't ask me why it took me so long, but it did and it's finally there. So if you prefer to listen on YouTube, by all means please it is now available there. It's still available, of course on all the other podcast platforms, but it's just another one it's going to be on now and I will also be making video content public video content that will be on the YouTube. Of course, all the videos will be on Patreon AD free, but they will be on YouTube for the public as well, so make sure you go check that out and subscribe to YouTube dot com slash at Sustal podcast. It's got my cover art and there with the hands and the crystal ball, so you can't miss it.

3:29 Please subscribe. Hope you all enjoy it. It's going to be stuff that is Suster related, paranormal related, it may just be random fun things. I think the most recent one I posted was I was looking for boots for a show that I went to. So again, you can see all about those things by visiting YouTube dot com slash at Sustal podcast. It's the same social media handle across all platforms, So please subscribe. Like the videos and I hope that you really do enjoy them. One final update I have for you, I will be doing an event with the Austin Public Library. I'm very excited. They invited me to do a summer camp fire storytelling kind of session. I've done this thing with them before and it's very fun. It's very exciting, and it's free and you can rs VP by visiting the sustolink tree, which is linktr dot ee slash sustal and it's right at the top Sustal at Austin Public Library. It's free to go save your spot and this will be at the Ruise branch of Austin Public Library. So you can go visit that link and then save your spot and I will see you there. It'll be very fun. Okay, that's it for the updates. One final thing before we get into today's story, Girlfriends, I do want to let you know that there is mention of suicide in this story, so as always, listener discretion is advised. Please care for yourselves and do what you need to do without further ado, we will get into today's story, which is the story of La. In the nineteen seventies, at the edge of

5:10 Monterey Nouavouleon, something began to rise from the earth, something strange, something not quite right. If you drive through the hills today, you may think the house is another luxury home, But it once stood abandoned, a cluster of hollow concrete tubes, like giant gray bones, standing crooked and unfinished against the skyline. But back then the locals called it La Casa de los UBOs, or the House of Tubes, And what was supposed to be a dream became a nightmare no one could wake from. They were a quiet pair, a man and his daughter. No one knew where they'd come from, no mother, no family, just the two of them starting over the father. Alejandro was a serious man, stern with deep eyes that looked like they'd seen too much. But with his daughter, Lucilla, something softened in him. She was around nine or ten, sweet, thoughtful, and quiet. Lucia had no mobility in her legs. She relied on a wheelchair and more than that, on her father. They were each other's world. One afternoon, standing on a quiet stretch of land just outside the city, Alejandro met with a young architect named Victor Aldama. In their meeting, Alejandro explained that

6:42 he wanted his daughter to navigate their home with complete freedom. Victor assured him that it could be done. He had a plan, unusual, but it could be perfect. He explained, What if we built a house made entirely of connected tubes, wide open, every floor connected with ramps instead of stairs. The rooms would curve into one another, smooth lines, gentle slopes. She could move through it without help freely. There would be no corners to get stuck in or stairs to hold her back. And we'd put in large windows so she could see the skies of Nouvo Leon whenever she wanted.

7:22 Alejandro responded with joy as Victor sketched out the house. Yes, Alejandro replied, that's what we need. Start as soon as possible. I want her to see it. For the construction crew, it was just another job site, a contract signed, equipment delivered, dust kicked up in the outskirts of Monterey. At first, the crew was intrigued. The layout was unique, ambitious, so it promised steady work and higher wages. But as the concrete frames began to rise, that excitement faded and the workers started to complain. Everything's round, nothing lines upright. This isn't how houses are built. How do you put a door or a window in a round wall? And then there were the reviews. Victor visited the site, constantly, inspecting every line and curve with the intensity of a man possessed.

8:18 He corrected the workers harshly, with a precise and almost obsessive focus. This house was going to be his opportunity to build something truly unique. This ramp too steep, tear it down, start again. These windows aren't aligned with the axis of the hill. Fix it. This edge is sharp. She must glide through this space. Alejandro would appear too, not as often, but when he did he watched quietly, sometimes with Lucia beside him. He never scolded, He only observed, as if making sure that every beam, every bolt, was worthy of her. The workers began to feel the weight.

8:59 Tensions rose. Fights broke out over minor mistakes, Tools went missing, Blame passed like a virus. The workers began to feel as if they were under constant watch, even when Victor and Alejandro were not around. A plasterer swore he set his toolbox down near one of the ramps, turned away for a second, and it vanished. The toolbox was later found on the third floor, in a spot he hadn't touched in days. An electrician heard a voice call his name, but when he followed it, no one was there. One man, half asleep on a late shift, claimed he saw something on the second floor, but he was alone as he finished his work. Others dismissed these stories. Stress, maybe exhaustion.

9:51 The circular design messes with your head, they said, no corners, no lines, just curves, but not everyone laughed. To ease the growing friction, the workers planned a small get together after hours. Drinks were passed around, and laughter slowly returned. The house half built seemed to be listening, watching. The crew was even talking about abandoning the work site, all except one man, Alberto. Alberto was the kind of man you barely notice, not because he wasn't important, but because he didn't demand attention. Mid thirties, always on time, always quiet, he kept his head down, did his work, and left without a word. To most, he was just another pair of hands mixing concrete, but he was precise with his work and never cut corners. Some say he was building his own house in his spare time, that he took on jobs like the house of tubes to pay for materials.

10:55 Others said he had no family, no one waiting for him at home. Either way, he was dependable, focused, a man who didn't scare easy. That made what happened next so much harder to understand. It was a Sunday morning. A skeleton crew had come in early, just three men, Alberto and two younger workers. The rest of the team was still recovering from the night before. Another of their alcohol fuel to gatherings meant to ease the tensions that continued to grow. Alberto hadn't touched a drop. He said little during the gathering and left early, muttering something about irresponsible co workers. Now, with the sun barely up, and the mountains still casting long shadows. He volunteered to go up to the third floor, an unfinished area with narrow catwalks and exposed reebar. He was up there for maybe twenty minutes when the two men below heard a strange sound like metal screeching, then came the screen. They dropped their tools ran toward the stairwell, but before they could even call his name, they found him sprawled in the center of the main hallway, eyes wide open, mouth parted slightly, like he was mid sentence, like he'd seen something and hadn't had time to speak. But what they found even more bizarre was that there were no broken railings, no loose scaffolding, and when the scene was examined they confirmed

12:27 something chilling. There were no footprints, The dust where Alberto had been working was undisturbed. It was as if he hadn't tripped and fallen at all, but rather was thrown. The crew was silent after that. No one wanted to ask questions, no one wanted to say what they felt. But one of the young workers present that day later admitted something, something that alarmed even the hardest skeptics. He said he looked up to the third floor, just seconds after the screen, and for a moment he swore he saw someone standing up there, not Alberto, someone taller, shadowed, motionless watching. When he blinked, they were gone. From that moment on, the sight was never the same. The air felt heavier, the walls listened, tools moved by themselves, and something, whatever had taken Alberto, was still there waiting. The weeks that followed Alberto's death were heavy. The men worked quietly. Now, they spoke less. The laughter stopped. Some quit, unable to shake the feeling that something had gone terribly wrong in that house, that it wasn't just an accident. But others stayed, bills needed paying, and they convinced themselves it had just been bad luck. Then came Ramon's turn. He was one

14:00 of the oldest on the site, a man who'd worked every kind of build from Montere to Sartillo. One afternoon, he was working alone in a narrow hallway on the second floor. Most of the crew had taken lunch, and only two others remained nearby, painting window frames down the corridor. Ramon had just started stacking buckets of plaster mix when he paused, sensing something a chill swept down his back. He turned to look behind him, no one, and then before he could move, a full rack of materials, wooden beams, rebar, bags of cement, crashed down from the scaffolding overhead. It was over in seconds. The others rushed to dig him out, their hands shaking, shouting his name, but it was too late.

14:52 Ramon lay crushed beneath the weight of it all, his eyes still wide open in disbelief. The beams had been secure, the scaffold untouched, no one had been near it. Victor and the other engineers reviewed it all. Nothing made sense. The fall should have been impossible. But one of the workers, pale and trembling, swore he heard Ramond speak just before it happened. He said he heard him mutter the land doesn't want us here. That day, half the crew quit. Still, Alejandro pushed forward. He was desperate to finish it. He believed, had to believe that once Lucilla lived in her new home, it would all be worth it. A few weeks later, with most of the structure complete, he brought her to see it. Lucilla's eyes lit up. She explored the ramps rolled down, the wide corridors, smiled for the first time in months. No one saw when she slipped away. The story goes that she wheeled herself higher and higher up the unfinished ramps, following the light from the windows. No one noticed until it was too late. Alejandro found her body on the ground below the largest window on the third floor. His world ended at that moment. All construction was halted immediately, but Alejandro stayed. He began living in the house alone, no furniture, no light, just bottles of

16:28 mescal and his grief. Neighbors said they saw him wandering the halls at night, talking to no one, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, and then one day he was gone to They found him in the main cylinder, beneath a skylight, slumped over, still holding her favorite drawing in one hand, a picture of the house they'd never lived in together, and a gun in the other. The house stood empty for years, a skeleton of sorrow against the hills of Monterrey. Time weathered it, but nothing truly touched it. Locals called it cursed, haunted, doomed. But then something changed. An ambitious architecture firm, modern sleek, full of bright eyed designers, saw the shell not as haunted, but as historic. They came with cranes, steel glass, and confidence. They didn't believe in curses.

17:30 They completed what Alejandro had started, finished the ramps, recut the windows, polished the concrete bones into a minimalist marvel. It was reborn as a modern luxury home, open plan, sunlight drenched, and painfully expensive. Today a family lives there, wealthy and private. But the locals still talk. They say that sometimes late at night they see shadows moving inside the long glass windows. Too many shadows for just one family. Some say they hear something the echo of a wheelchair rolling across concrete, even though no one there uses one.

18:12 Others say they've seen a figure fall from the rooftop in the dark, only for no body to be found. A few workers from the remodel refused to ever return. They said they heard voices, felt watched. They say the house might look new, but what lives inside it is still old, still waiting, still unfinished. Maybe it's just a house, or maybe some things are never meant to be built.

19:00 Welcome back, Gohol friends, Thank you so much for tuning in for that story. So we do have a couple sources to go through, not a Ton. This was one of those stories that is very specific to the region, so there are not many variations of it. So again, this is a real place, le Goasauvos. The House of Tubes is a real house in Monterey. The lore, the legend around it is only in that area, so of course there's less opportunity for that story to morph. However, we did take some creative liberties in putting the story together. Again, this was a SUSTO original by Jeffrey and myself, so in the people who passed away, the difference is here. The first source that I want to go through is from a website called scaryfour Kids dot com and the entry is simply titled House of Tubes, published in twenty thirteen, and all direct links to these sources will be in the Susto Google doc on Patreon dot com, Sustal podcast.

19:49 But again Scary for Kids dot com House of Tubes. So in this one, this story, and it's essentially the same story, but here it says that the death, the first one that happened was when the owner or the person that was having the house built for his daughter took her to visit it, and so she was there when two workers passed away due to an accident. So it says here on the day the girl went to see the house, two of the architects who designed it suffered a terrible accident and were killed by falling concrete. Already, not even two of the construction workers. It was two of the architects. I'm wondering if they're using that interchangeably, if it's maybe it was two of the workers, two of the I'm not sure, but two people died as a result of an accident when the father took her daughter to see the house. Right, it says the family managed to hire another group of builders because the construction crew that first one after that accident, they refused to continue work, so they were able to hire another group of workers, and the girl wanted to go back and check on them. I'm guessing the little girl she just wanted to go see this story. It seems like she's more involved with it, right, versus the version that we told.

20:55 It's kind of centered around the dad's experience and his involvement with it. It says here that she wanted to go check it out, and so that she was exploring the house like we said in the story, and that she began to slide backward down a ramp. It seems here like it was maybe a force that was pulling her because she was unable to stop herself, and that her wheelchair, it says here, came hurtling down the ramp, going much too fast. The poor girl went flying out the open window and fell to her death. And this continues. Her grieving parents couldn't bear the thought of living in the property that had caused their daughter's death, so all construction was immediately stopped, never to resume again. As you can hear from here, we say her grieving parents. So again in this version of the story, she has both her parents, and we focus more so on her dad in the version that we tell. But this continues that years later the building that it was half finished, it was put on the market. There were not all the people that were interested, but one wealthy family went to see the house. It was two parents and I'm guessing their young son. And while they were checking out the house, the boy went off exploring on his own, and that they heard him screaming. This says when they looked up, they saw him struggling with a little girl. As they watched in horror, The girl grabbed their son and tossed him out of the window. The boy landed on the ground below with a sickening thud. The young girl was nowhere to be found. After this terrible tragedy, the authorities fenced off the land and it was no longer available to the public. They say the house is cursed and it is haunted by the ghosts of the two children who died there. This would kind of lead you to believe, like, oh,

22:26 the ghosts of the girl who died there, she attacked him. Right then It's like, what if it was an attack, what attacked those two construction workers and what attacked the little girl. So I think it's maybe like it could be an entity. If we wanted to flesh out this idea of what is actually happening in the House of Tubes, it could be an entity. I think maybe that's taking different forms. So I'm not sure what form the construction workers may have seen, if anything at all, or what the little girl saw, But then it could possibly have taken the form of the girl to get the little boy that the other people saw. I don't know. Oh, but this finishes it says it is said that at night, the horrible sound of a young girl weeping can be heard, and the ghostly apparition of a young boy has been spotted playing the entrance. Some people claim to have seen a young girl standing at the open window of one of the upper floors and waving at passers by, again with it's always for some reason to me, it's a little creepier when it's kids, because you don't expect to see you know, you expect people to live full lives.

23:26 That is always the hope and the goal. Right. And also demons quote demons notoriously take shape of children, right to kind of lure people in. They take the form of something innocent, so that you're you're disarmed, right anyway. This next source here is from Monterey secreto dot com and this has a listical It says, these are the most famous haunted places in Monterey. Did you already know them? Have you visited them? Many of the places on this list can be visited, But are you brave enough to do it? I will also say, and you'll see pictures of this throughout not only the video but on social media. The house itself. Now it is finished. I want to say it finished. Sometime in like the early two thousands.

24:06 It's a gorgeous house. It is truly like a luxury you can tell an expansive house. But I don't believe. Yeah, Like like we said in the story, the family lives there, I don't believe it's open. I wish they would open it up as like an Airbnb, because it's it's interesting. It's like, it looks like this beautiful museum like almost thing, but it has this kind of spooky history where it's like, I feel like those things. Normally a haunted place looks a certain way, right, but this is not this. It really looks like a museum in some ways. This is a short entry and it says the legend of this house with a peculiar architectural style, tells that it was a gift from a father to his daughter who suffered from paralysis and could not walk. The house has this shape because it was intended so that the girl could move freely in her wheelchair. And so this is where we got the idea of following just the father and the daughter in the story. Right. This continues however, since its construction, strange things began to happen, and the masons and builders commented that as they progressed with the work, they felt that they were being watched and some of the tools disappeared and appeared in impossible places. So again there's that detail of things being moved, which also we oh my god, new theory. So maybe not an entity.

25:14 What if it was Dwendez because we know that dwends can be mischievous and they can move things around. They can also lead people to their deaths. They lure them away, right, but typically they're like forest dwelling creatures. I'm not sure this is like, this looks like a really it's it's like a mountainside. So maybe they could be in this area. I don't know. They said a girl, they could be. They could have meant like a small girl, like a child. I don't know. Hey, who knows. Okay, So so far we have evil entity that can change forms, and now we have Guendez. Right. Anyway, this continues. When they finished the top floor, a brick layer was thrown out of one of the windows and died. So a brick like a person who lays bricks. Construction stopped to investigate the cause of death, which was determined to be quote accidental death.

25:58 Shortly thereafter, construction resumed, and when the father took his daughter to see his house. On one of the tours of the mansion, the girl slipped down one of the ramps and was thrown out of one of the windows and died instantly. Shortly after the girl's death, the father also died by suicide in this place in the in the home, people who have visited the house have claimed to have witnessed poultrygeist cases or poultrygeist activity. So this was also mentioned in the story that the father did die by suicide, and so of course obviously that's going to add to like the haunting element. I feel like in a movie, right, he would be able to be with his daughter. But that's really really tragic and really morbid to think of that as a solution. I don't know. Yeah, this is really just truly a sad story. So this next source is from a website called amazing architecture dot com, because this is an amazing house and this was published four years ago. It's titled The House of Tubes in Montee, Mexico by Endriquelal by Grupo Urban. This says, what was this published in four years ago? So twenty twenty one right, and this says the Mexican architecture firm Stato by Grupo Urban, led by Enrique Leal, has recently completed the House of Tubes, a new residence project, integrating it into an existing structure from the middle of the nineteen seventies, particular shapes and volumes that made history in the southern part of the city of Monterrey. So again, yeah, around twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, this thing was completed, and there's an architecture statement here. It says, this project seeks to find the balance between the pre existing and the new. How can

27:30 it be adapted to something that was already there the needs and wishes to a shape that does not present a direct dialogue with them. The answer was complex. Demolishing the house was the first impulse that made sense in face of the challenge. Rescuing the structure and integrating the necessities led us to a point where the analysis became challenging and insinuating. We discovered that eradicating as well as replicating, we're a language that didn't translate to the project. Okay, and there's more to this architecture statement. So it's really interesting to see how an architecture like this looks at a building. You know, at the very base level, this is a building, it's a structure, but to see how someone thinks about it. And there are a ton of pictures on this link itself, so you can really see like all the details and it's just, I don't know, it's really it's just cool to look at and see how they managed to meld those two things. Because again there's you can see why they called it the House of tubes. It looks like these pipes sending up and then there's you can see the structure that they added.

28:29 Almost looks like it's a separate thing, but they made it work. I don't know, it's beautiful. But tod a bit from this link. It says the property is located within the Guadalupe Municipality, which is a part of the metropolitan area of Monterre, Mexico, located in Serro de la Silla, which is one of the most emblematic mountains in the city and in Mexico. The whole property is located at the foot of the mountain. It has a forty five degree slope, which represents more than fifty percent of its surface. This says a little bit later. The original property, which has several cylinder shaped buildings, has had not been finished since the beginning of the construction in the mid nineteen seventies. The building is known amongst locals as La Gasa de los Uvos. La Gasa de los Thuvos has captivated the city's imagination. Its unique design and the fact that it was never finished allowed space for some urban legends, so they even mentioned that here. They do not get into the specifics of the urban legends on this website, and I wish they did, just because it's it's such a professional presentation of this house. But that's probably why they didn't get into it, because this is supposed to be a professional representation of the house. But again, tons of pictures that you also check out. It's literally like looking at a museum, like I would be worried to live in here. I'd be like, I can't touch anything. And again, this is at Amazing Architecture dot Com, the House of Tubes.

29:48 There's even sketches here of the house when they decided to do this modern kind of integration into it. It's really cool. What I will say I think is an interesting detail is at the center of both of the structure, the original tubes and the modern kind of thing is one of the tubes, and they have here in the sketch and they said it's it's the pool. It's a water joint element. That's kind of how they joined the two things. And I don't know how intentional that was, but the idea of water, which we know as a conduit, is being used to meld past in the present or the past in the future, and the water is the present. You know, it's all like it's a pool, right you look at it, It's like, oh, it's just a pool in the house. But I don't know, it feels like having it in that specific area in the center of the house, in the center of these two things is very intentional. Who knows. Maybe it was just aesthetically it was the best choice, but I think spiritually, I think it was a spiritual choice. And that is purely conjecture.

30:49 I do not know this architecture, this architect at all, or this designer at also completely not up to me. The last thing we have here is kind of a source, but not really. I mean, they do talk about the home, but they don't talk about the legend is a video on YouTube and it's called the House of Tubes in monter Mexico by Enrique Leal h Stato by Grupo Urban and it's just a video of this house itself, So if you don't want to scroll through the pictures, you can watch this video and there's someone there's a voiceover talking about the house and the architecture, and it's very like moody and artsy, so I mean, it's beautiful. If you're if hey, if you have millions of dollars and you're looking for inspiration to build a home, watch this video and also send me a dollar. Please. Welcome back, girlfriends.

31:44 Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Susto. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to support the show, you can do so by engaging with it wherever it is. So that means by listening to the episode, liking, sharing, leaving positive ratings and reviews, sharing with your own gool friends, following me on social media. That's at sous to podcasts on every platform, which now includes YouTube, so go ahead and subscribe on YouTube. Like I said, I will be doing more public video content, so feel free to let me know what you would like to see on there as well. I will take ideas. Again, it does not have to be Sustal specific or paranormal related. I'll do just random fun things on there too. We will see And as always, if you would like to hear your own story on a Letters from the Beyond episode, you can do so by visiting my website sustopodcast dot com or by visiting the linktree that's linkdr dot e slash Sustal and hitting that tell me a Story or Submit a story button and then filling out the Letters from the Beyond form you can write your story. You can also send in pictures, videos, recording, any multimedia. You can attach it to the form and send it to me.

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