“My grandfather had a temper, though it was more bark than bite. But after moving into the house, he changed. He became brutal, even violent. He raged at servants, sometimes beating them, even beating my grandmother, which they say he’d never done before. The abuse was bad enough my grandmother sent my mother away to boarding school back East. It likely saved her life.”
The rages became legendary in their small coastal community. People speculated the Courtneys were cursed or the house haunted, and the suffering couple was called cruel nicknames by locals—Crazy Daisy and Vicious Victor. Victor blamed his own troubles on his wife. He had her subjected to brutal psychological treatments—unregulated drugs, water “cures” and even high-voltage electroshock therapy. Nothing worked to alleviate her depression. When the news came that Victor and Daisy were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide, no one was much surprised. The house remained in the family but laid abandoned for decades until the Courtneys’ only grandchild returned to it in his midthirties.
“It was morbid curiosity that brought me here. I wanted to see the old pile my mother talked about but refused to visit. I knew I’d inherit it eventually and wondered what I’d be getting myself into. Sell it? Knock it down? I was planning for the worst when I drove out here. My mother blamed this house for killing her parents. My grandfather had named the house Xanadu, but behind his back everyone called it Courtney’s Folly,” Capello said. “All up and down the coast you can still hear people telling ghost stories about the house. I was in medical school at the time and had a very good feeling it wasn’t a ghost that caused my grandparents’ troubles. I sent in contractors who tested the paint, tested the pipes. My grandparents weren’t insane and they weren’t bedeviled by ghosts or demons.” What they were, Dr. Capello’s testing found, was ill. Very ill. “They both suffered from lead poisoning, which has both physical and neurological side effects. Unscrupulous builders had substituted poor quality lead pipes for the higher quality copper pipes my grandfather had ordered. My feeling had been right. The house did kill them but not for the reason everyone thought.”
That discovery lead Capello on a quest to restore the house and his grandfather’s reputation in the community. The three-story estate has half a dozen bedrooms, just as many bathrooms and sits directly overlooking the beach. “I stood on the old deck and saw a family of five splashing in the water. One of the kids ran over to me and asked if I lived in the house. I told her no and her face fell. She said that was too bad, because the house was ‘so cool’ because to her it looked like a green dragon from a distance. I’d never noticed that before, but then I couldn’t stop seeing it like that.”
And so it began, Dr. Capello’s quest to turn a house haunted by death and darkness and rumors of madness into the ideal family home. The old pipes were replaced, of course, and all the lead-based paint removed or painted over. Capello had inherited two fortunes when his parents passed away—his mother, who despite her wealth spent her life teaching English literature in underprivileged schools, was heir to the Courtney lumber money, and his father, David Capello, had invested heavily in pharmaceutical stock that paid off handsomely in the 1980s. The hardworking surgeon is now a very wealthy man, though you couldn’t tell from looking at him. He wears scrubs at work and old khakis and sweatshirts at home.
“I’m a dad,” he says of his attire. “We don’t dress to impress around here. We dress to make a mess.” This, his eldest child says, is one of Capello’s many “dad-isms.”
Capello explains he was the sort of man married to his work, but always longed for children. As Capello dreamed that first day at Courtney’s Folly, the house is now full of children. Seven, at the moment, and all of them taken from the foster care system.
“My grandparents’ story taught me we have a long way to go to understanding and treating the causes of violent behavior. When I decided to bring foster children into my life, I knew I would help the kids no one else wanted, kids with behavior problems that made them ‘unadoptable.’ Every child’s fate is up to the luck of the draw. I won the lottery of birth—wealthy parents and a happy life. These kids lost it. All I want to do is share my winnings with them.”
But it’s how some of these “unadoptable” children ended up in Dr. Capello’s life that is, perhaps, the most incredible story. He even spoke of meeting one of his foster children through his medical practice. The boy, he explained, was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which Dr. Capello was scheduled to operate on. This same child also had extensive behavioral problems, including a compulsion to harm children and animals. Remarkably, once the tumor was removed, the child’s sight was restored and his behavior improved by leaps and bounds. Capello continues his research in this area, however, hoping to show how extreme behavioral issues are sometimes the result of trauma on the brain (from a tumor, for example) and are, in fact, treatable with surgery.
Some of the children he fosters stay for a week or a month. Others stay with him longer. Capello has officially adopted three of his foster children and may adopt more in time. “Seven at the most,” Capello said. “My van won’t hold more than that.”
Friends in the Department of Health call Capello a natural, a born foster father and even a magician. Katherine Grant, head of DHS’s foster care placement program agrees, saying, “If I had a hundred Vincent Capellos I could save every troubled child in this state. We send him our tough cases, the ones we despair of being able to help. Every lion comes back a lamb. Either there’s something in the water out there, or he’s working miracles.”
Ask Capello his secret to helping these children through their issues and he’ll answer with one word: “Love.”
Soon the legendary surgeon, nicknamed “the Man of Steel” for the strength of his hands, a boon to any surgeon, will retire to become a full-time foster father. “Surgery is a young man’s game, and I’m not a young man anymore.”
His children are counting down the days until Dad no longer has to leave at five in the morning and come home exhausted from the hospital. The sooner, the better, they say, agreeing, “Dad really is getting too old for that stuff.”
The once-abandoned and seemingly haunted house is a palace now. A children’s palace. No longer is it called Courtney’s Folly but The Dragon, a perfect name for the green-shingled gentle monster of a home that lurks at the edge of the map. When Dr. Capello is working, which is more often than he likes, three local women take turns acting as nannies to the brood—cooking and cleaning, driving the kids to school and helping with homework. But more often than not, you’ll find Dr. Capello here alone with his children, which is exactly the way he wants it.
Today seven pairs of flip-flops sit by the deck door. Every room is brightly painted and lovingly decorated. There are toys and books and beach towels everywhere you look. Anyone watching Dr. Capello grilling hot dogs on the deck while his children play in the sand can’t help but envy them. From being dealt a bad hand to holding a full house, these kids are indeed very lucky to have found a doctor, a father, a savior and a hero in Vincent Capello. But don’t try telling that to him.
“No, no, no,” Capello said to this remark. He pointed at himself. “I’m the lucky one.”
Chapter 12
Allison read the article beginning to end twice, and by the time she finished, she had to wipe a tear off her face. She’d never known any of that about Dr. Capello’s family or the history of The Dragon.