Laurie Alsberg is a Los Angeles physical therapist who was born and raised in Ocala, Florida, once known as “The Brick City” of Florida, but better known today as one of the leading centers for breeding Thoroughbred horses.
Like countless other young American girls, Laurie Alsberg grew up crazy about all animals, but horses in particular. The Ocala area is doted with riding stables, and Laurie Alsberg was riding by the by the age of ten. By fifteen she was a prizewinning rider. “When I found Ocala Spectacular, I knew I found my riding home,” she recalls today. “Ocala Spectacular, which is still in business as far as I know, was operated with the rider in mind. ‘Riders First’ – that was their motto. My favorite teacher was a former Olympic rider, a German guy named Hans, a real riding master who made me into the rider that I became.”
Laurie Alsberg grew up in downtown Ocala. The area is known for its many historic homes that are preserved in Ocala’s large residential Historic District, established in 1984. Most of the houses in the downtown area, she says, were built after a devastating fire in 1883 that burned much of the downtown area to the ground. “They were built with brick, granite, and steel instead of wood,” Laurie Alsberg says, “which is how Ocala came to be known as ‘the Brick City.’”
Laurie Alsberg grew up only a few blocks from one of the area’s best-known attractions, the Seven Sisters Inn. The Seven Sisters Inn, built in 1888, was a bed-and-breakfast establishment, and reputed to be a haunted house. The Seven Sisters Inn drew curiosity seekers from far and wide and was featured on several television programs about haunted houses.
Does Laurie Alsberg believe there really are ghosts haunting the Seven Sisters Inn? “That place really scared me when I was little,” she says today. “I used to go around the block on my way to school, just so I didn’t have to walk past it.” Two of the alleged spirits still residing in the inn are its original inhabitants, Emma and Ben Rheinauer. In addition – so the legend goes – there is George, a flirting gentleman from the 50s era, that has made himself seen on several occasions. Three children provide activity that is playful but incredibly noticeable and, so the story goes, beyond mere coincidence.
After graduating from Ocala West High School, Laurie Alsberg attended Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and the University of Southern California, where she obtained her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree in 1997. Today, she owns and operates Inertia Physical Therapy in Los Angeles.