FISHERS LANDING — Rose Claudia watched Meat Loaf walk out on the docks in Fishers Landing, and the first thing he said was “Would you do anything for love?”
Mrs. Claudia and her family, owners of the Isle of Pines in Fishers Landing, raised a glass Friday night as they thought of the late rocker, who once visited their island to shoot an episode of “Ghost Hunters.”
Meat Loaf, born in Dallas as Marvin Lee Aday, died Thursday. He was 74.
“He was Meat Loaf but we knew him personally,” said Ms. Claudia’s daughter, Danielle. “We got to see what he was really like. He was very open about a lot of things. His passing was really sad.”
Meat Loaf performed in 2007 on the baseball diamond at the Alex T. Duffy Fairgrounds in Watertown, but he also visited the north country as a guest on a show he watched as a fan.
The Isle of Pines, a small island on the St. Lawrence River between Clayton and Alexandria Bay, is only a few hundred yards off the shore of Fishers Landing. It’s big enough to hold a main house and a boathouse just as grand with a turn-of-the-century ballroom on the second floor. The island is thought to be haunted, but that’s relative — the Claudia family will tell you the ghosts or spirits they’ve seen on the property are harmless.
Ms. Claudia’s grandfather, Nicholas R. Cobisello — a leader in building roads to the Thousand Islands Bridge, across Wellesley Island, along Route 12 and Interstate 81 — purchased the island in the early 1940s. The family spends their summers there now. They say they’ve heard footsteps and smelled cigar smoke even though they don’t partake. Danielle said she’s seen a little girl run across her bed, a woman in a white dress and a man in a vest. And of course, objects move around the house inexplicably. Their guests, too, have woken up to what appears to be a person standing next to their bed. Some guests don’t come back.
Back in 2008, the A&E hit show “Ghost Hunters,” which initially ran for 11 seasons and was later revived, held the Great American Ghost Hunt to find the most haunted house in the country. The competition led the show to the winner’s property to film a ghost-hunting episode.
Danielle figured she would submit the Isle of Pines for fun. She didn’t think anything of it until she got the phone call. Their island was among the top three finalists. The show’s crew filmed on the island for a week straight. The crew followed the Claudias around the island and interviewed them, basically profiling the family and isle before America voted on the final three haunted places.
Danielle traveled to Colorado and then Delaware, meeting the show’s hosts and filming the episodes that decided the finalists. The shows aired, America voted, and the Isle of Pines won.
A year later, the show reached out to the Claudias and said a ghost hunt would be filmed on the island.
“They said ‘We’re coming out and we just want to let you know a celebrity guest is coming to do the ghost hunt, but we can’t tell you who it is,’” Danielle said.
The Claudia family waited, on edge, for the crew to make it to the north country, wondering which celebrity would be joining them.
The day finally came and the crew made it to the docks in Fishers Landing.
“That’s when they said ‘Do you want to meet the celebrity?’” Ms. Claudia said. “And that’s when Meat Loaf walked out on the dock.”
Ms. Claudia and Danielle said Meat Loaf was down to earth, gracious and appreciative that they allowed him on their island.
“I said ‘What would you like me to call you? And he said ‘Call me Meat,’” Ms. Claudia said. “We asked why he went by Meat Loaf, and he said that his mother came up with the nickname because when he was born he was so pink, like meat.”
On the island, they all went to the ballroom in the boathouse, and Meat Loaf saw the piano. He immediately started serenading the Claudias.
“We have this beautiful, turn-of-the-century Steinway sitting there that you could never move because it’s so heavy, and here’s Meat Loaf sitting at this piano playing in the ballroom,” Ms. Claudia said. “It was just fantastic.”
Meat Loaf spent more than 24 hours filming the episode with the crew and hosts. A water bottle moved inexplicably, and a ghostly woman sat next to Meat Loaf on the third floor of the main house. But what Ms. Claudia and Danielle seem to remember the most, all these years later, is how much they enjoyed being around Meat Loaf.
“We sat at our kitchen with him and his wife and we had a meal together and we talked,” Danielle said. “It was like having a friend over. He was just the kindest person ever.”
Season 5, Episode 15, titled “A Bat Out of Hell” with Meat Loaf and the Thousand Islands can be streamed on Discovery Plus.
“He wasn’t just a pop star from afar,” Ms. Claudia said. “He was very gracious. It was like we were doing him a favor. It was very surreal.”
