Loving with Abandon in America's Ruins: Louis and Fletcher

This episode explores the romantic and explorative journey of Louis and Fletcher, who share a unique bond through their fascination with abandoned spaces and urban exploration.

1. Shared interests can forge deep, meaningful relationships.
2. Exploring abandoned spaces offers a unique lens on history and personal connection.
3. The transition from friendship to romance can be enriched by common passions.
4. Urban exploration is a metaphor for navigating the complexities of relationships.
5. The episode illustrates how personal histories influence present relationships.

1: Introduction

Blake Pfeil introduces the episode and sets the stage for the romantic story between Louis and Fletcher. Blake Pfeil: "Welcome to a special episode of 'Abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.'"

2: Meeting Louis and Fletcher

Details how Louis and Fletcher met and their first exploration together. Fletcher Petrucci: "We met on Tinder... and soon after, we were exploring an abandoned hospital."

3: Background Stories

Explores the backgrounds of both individuals, emphasizing their connection to abandoned places. Louis Angoltira: "I've always had a passion for antiques and historical architecture."

4: Deepening Connection

Describes how their relationship deepened through shared explorations. Fletcher Petrucci: "Exploring together brought us closer."

5: Future Aspirations

Discusses their future plans and aspirations within their relationship and personal goals. Louis Angoltira: "We both dream of preserving historical sites."

1. Explore shared interests to deepen connections in relationships.
2. Use urban exploration as a bonding activity to discover new aspects of each other.
3. Document and share experiences to preserve personal and communal histories.
4. Embrace the stories of places to enrich personal relationships and understandings.
5. Communicate openly about passions and how they can be integrated into daily life.

Urban explorers Louis Inghilterra and Fletcher Petrucci met in the unlikeliest of places: an abandoned hospital in Denver, CO. Celebrate Pride 2024 with this bonus episode of abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast as host Blake Pfeil profiles Louis and Fletcher’s unique journey to finding queer companionship and love inside the ruins of America.

People

Louis Angoltira, Fletcher Petrucci

Companies

None

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Fletcher Petrucci
You're listening to an airwave media podcast. I talked to other people before about abandoned spaces, so I'd always use that as a kind of a line, but I had always gotten some weird responses. One person was like, oh, you're gonna murder me if we go to some abandoned space. I just remember matching with Fletcher, and he had a picture on his profile of him at some school, and there was some green ivy on the windows, and I clearly could see it was abandoned. And then I just knew that from there.

Los Angoltira
Right fit.

Blake Pfeil
Hi, my name is Blake, and welcome to abandoned the All American Ruins podcast. We're between seasons now, but rather than abandon your RSS feed, I'm gonna do exactly what I did last season, share a few bonus episodes while I dive into production on season three. So if you haven't listened to the show yet, I gently suggest that you go back to the beginning of the series so that you get a better sense of what I typically do here.

I want you to imagine your worst first date. Where did you go? What did you do? Why was that your worst? My name is Fletcher Petrucci, and I currently work for United Airlines as a flight attendant.

Fletcher Petrucci
I would consider myself an urban explorer, photographer, or videographer.

Blake Pfeil
Now I want you to imagine your best first date. Same questions. Where'd you go? What did you do? Why was that the best?

Los Angoltira
My name is Los Angoltira. I am currently an interior designer in the Denver area, and I consider myself a photographer, urban explorer, and also a history seeker.

Blake Pfeil
Personally, my best first date was a picnic. A guy asked me to go to Fort Tryon, close to the northern tip of Manhattan. He laid out snacks, and we watched the Hudson river drift by. It was sweet and low key, but out of all the first date stories I've heard, Lewis and Fletcher's is certainly the most original. Sort of a dream date, actually, at least for people like me.

They met exploring an abandoned building, a hospital. But the story of how they found each other in Colorado is a lovely, modern, queer tale of love, fate, and, of course, abandoned spaces.

Unknown
Across the great flat of the land, across the desert and the open plains. They come from the beehives of the east, the woodlands of the northwest. They come to visit to make a home, to capture the beauty and the grandeur, which is uniquely Colorado. The story that brought me out to Colorado is a pretty interesting, odd one, if you are aware of what Atlantis is. I was on one of those cruises, and I happened to meet this couple who turned out to be some of the nicest people I ever met.

Fletcher Petrucci
And we were all really drunk one night, and we're joking around, and I was like, oh, I really want to get out of West Virginia, live there my whole life. They jokingly were saying, oh, hey, why don't you just move to Colorado with us? They already lived here. And literally the whole cruise, we just hung out the whole time.

Blake Pfeil
When Fletcher got back home, he walked into issues with the house that he was living in and decided he was ready for something new. So he took a big risk and he called the couple. I was like, hey, you know, were you joking about me moving there or, like, was this serious? And they were like, no, you want to come visit? So I came down here and I hung out here, and then I flew back and got all my things and moved down here with everything that fit in my car.

As a native Colorado who was surrounded by homophobia my entire life, learning Lewis and Fletcher's story warmed my heart. An openly gay couple in Colorado? That's preposterous, but let's rewind a bit. In the fall of 2023, I was home reporting a story for history, Colorado's podcast Lost Highways. Lewis found me on instagram because he worked for the Borscht Belt historical marker project with Marissa Sheinfeld, who I profiled in a bonus episode last season.

He saw I was in Colorado, so we got coffee, and next thing you know, I immediately had a new urbex friend. I moved out to Colorado in 2019 for Colorado State University. I wanted to go directly into preservation. I ideally want to go in, renovate spaces and preserve them. I realized that I've always had kind of an interest in interior design, and I thought that would be compatible.

Los Angoltira
The preservation field focuses on renovation and reconfiguring spaces. The second he landed in Colorado, Lewis fell in love with it. I enjoyed the way of life out here. I could just sense it when I was here. It just was going to be a change of pace that I was used to on the east coast, and I had a lot of friends from college that moved down here and had an offer to move in with a really close friend of mine with his band.

So we were looking for houses and landed down here. For now, it's a good spot to be.

Blake Pfeil
Something both Lewis and Fletcher have in common is their desire for adventure and, of course, their love of the unknown, the unseen. And for Fletcher, this is deeply rooted in his west virginian upbringing.

Fletcher Petrucci
Harper's Ferry is a national park where the John Brown's raid heart of the Civil War, happened. You can stand in Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia all at the same time, and the rivers converge in the middle. We were right outside of DC, so I spent a lot of time in DC taking the metro and stuff because we had access to that. But I would say that the area that I grew up in was a small town vibe. But it wasn't just his small town vibe that instilled that sense of wonder in him.

Blake Pfeil
The what's behind that locked door? Kind of thinking it was the people he grew up with, specifically his grandfather. My grandfather's name was Dale, but everybody called him Binky. He had this weird nickname since, I guess, childhood, and he was more like a father figure to me. And as a kid, I was always interested in the history of places.

Fletcher Petrucci
Driving around, I would be like, oh, I want to stop and look inside that abandoned house. I was the type of kid that when we would be visiting people's homes, I would be nosy and wanted to see, like, in people's basements and stuff. Binky didn't stop Fletcher from always wondering what's behind that locked door. Instead, he encouraged Fletcher's natural curiosity, especially when it came to abandoned properties all over Harper's ferry. Well, he eventually would start taking me into these places and would tell me what he remembered about them.

That became our weekend activity. And I had this really close friend, me. Him and my grandfather would go out, like, literally every weekend. And my grandfather was kind of the wingman, where he would sit outside and watch for security while me and my friend Brandon went inside. And then if security rolled up, my grandfather would be wearing his park service uniform and would be like, oh, I'm here.

Taking photos, just distracting so we could get out of the building. We had a really cool relationship, and he actually got me into a lot of places, and he was super supportive of it. Jesus, we. Are.

Blake Pfeil
It was a similar experience for Lewis. Since he can remember. He's been interested in old things, ancient things, unseen things. But his lifelong love of bygone artifacts, buildings and properties stems from a much deeper, more painful source. So I was raised in Hudson Valley in New York, about an hour from New York City.

Los Angoltira
I had always had a passion for antiques and historical architecture since I was around five years old. I attribute it to many things. My father passed away in 911, and I inherited a large collection of his vinyl records and guitars. And so at a young age, I had a curiosity for antiques because I was surrounded by my dad's possessions. Lewis's father, Lewis Sr.

Blake Pfeil
Worked for fiduciary trust Company International, which occupied offices on the 90th floor. As well as floors 94 to 97 of the south tower at the World Trade Center. Jim, just a few moments ago, something happened. Believed to be a plane crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Mister Inkoterra's name is listed on the south pool of the 911 memorial.

In addition to serving as a treasurer at FTCI, he was also a musician, played in a rock band for 30 years, and idolized Frank Zappa. After the loss of his father, Lewis was raised by his mother Diane, who'd only been married to Lewis Sr. For five years when he passed. I was raised as an only child and we would do a lot of trips back and forth to central Pennsylvania where my mom's family was, and we would go to historical houses around the east coast. I even had my kindergarten birthday party at Washington Irvings in Tarrytown, New York.

Armed with inspiration from his parents, Lewis appreciation for history and things left behind was amplified significantly when he started to climb into his early teen years. I had a babysitter, Georgie, who was very much in tune with my interests. She would take me to museums in New York City and she was very much into history and antiques. In the town I was growing up in, Catona, New York, there is these ruins of an abandoned mental hospital called Bailey Hall School. I remember going with Georgie and then I just remember looking up different abandoned places in New York.

Los Angoltira
And that's how I found the Pines Hotel in the Catskills and the Borscht belt and the Tamarack Lodge and stumbled upon another smaller hotel called the Ulster Lake House. It was my first time in an abandoned space and it was just such a magical experience that I still remember to this day. Even though Lewis's memories of his father are virtually non existent, he knows that his parents were inseparable. And perhaps the story he knows about their marriage and the story about after his father passed influenced his own grown up feelings about what he's looking for in a partner and how to show up for that person. Lei had an amazing relationship and he was very excited to become a father.

My parents were both pretty late bringing me up. My dad, I think, was around 45. My mom was five years younger than him. Their relationship is unique in the sense that they didn't have really like interests and it just opposites attract versus Fletcher and Ives relationship really is surrounded by our look for abandoned spaces and architecture and antiques.

Blake Pfeil
By 2023, both Lewis and Fletcher had settled in Colorado. But the adjustment wasn't without natural growing pains. For Fletcher, it's definitely been a change, more so than I even thought a very scary change. But comparatively, I've been to Baltimore, I've been to DC, I've been to major cities. I'm no stranger to travel and going places and being in new, uncomfortable situations.

Fletcher Petrucci
But this was different because now I'm living here with people that I just met in a completely new environment, and I can't just run home to my grandparents when something goes wrong. No matter the discomfort that he experienced with the monumental shift, he came out the other side, feeling at home in the mile high city and ready to dive into the dating pool in one way or another. And of course, as a Gen Z er, one of the best places to meet a potential partner came right from the comfort of his own smartphone. We met on Tinder, and it was funny. We matched, and he had this picture of him sitting in a bathtub, and he asked if I could guess what type of building that photo was taken in.

And I answered with asylum. And then we made this plan. We met up, got burritos, and literally within, like, an hour of meeting each other, we're in an abandoned hospital on the roof.

Blake Pfeil
Fletcher knew pretty quickly what he wanted, and from the beginning, he wasn't afraid to express those feelings. To Lewis, I would say I was very obsessed. I was literally constantly nagging him about getting into a relationship, and we hadn't even known each other for that long. But for Lewis, it was his first relationship, and he felt like taking it a tad slower than Fletcher might have wanted. I'd been searching for someone for a while.

Los Angoltira
I kind of was done with the hookup circuit.

I talked to other people before about abandoned spaces, so I'd always use that as a kind of a line. But I had always gotten some weird responses.

One person was like, oh, you're gonna murder me if we go to some abandoned space. I just remember matching with Fletcher, and he had a picture on his profile of him at some school, and there was some green ivy on the windows, and I clearly could see it was abandoned. And then I just knew that from there, it was the right fit. While Lewis and Fletcher started toying with the word relationship, they began revealing their own respective worlds, introducing each other to the places they grew up, where each of their own obsessions with abandoned spaces first originated. We spent a couple days in Baltimore, and then we came back, and I originally wanted to go back to the hospital that we had first met at.

Fletcher Petrucci
And I went out and bought flowers and hid them in my backpack, and we tried to get inside, but they boarded it up, so I had to resort to giving them to him, his house. Finally, Fletcher had had enough and he was ready to ask Lewis the big question. After we met, I went back to the east coast and helped my mom move. And throughout that time we talked a little bit, but it was just really exciting for me to come back and spend more time with Fletcher, even after our small meetup in Baltimore to explore some of them and stuff. I missed him during that trip, and as soon as I came back, he gave me flowers and you want to start this up?

Los Angoltira
And I said, absolutely. I was trying to, like, create this whole, like, swede thing. And then, yeah, we ended up in a relationship.

Blake Pfeil
As Lewis and Fletcher's relationship grew over the first few months, they began to connect in very intimate ways, the likes of which neither were used to, namely Lewis. Since he'd never been in a relationship before. And as is the case with any romantic relationship, he learned in real time what it was he was really looking for in a partner. I would say starting off like a close friend and someone really that cares for you deeply is always there for you. We kind of give each other space because first of all, we live about half an hour from each other.

Los Angoltira
But I think it's helpful early on to not be totally involved with the person every waking hour.

Blake Pfeil
Despite Lewis being older than Fletcher, he felt inexperienced and as such, was willing to learn from Fletcher as they go. This is my first relationship I've been in, so it's all kind of new to me, and I give the reins over to Fletcher a little bit because he's been in a couple before. Fletcher was happy to show Lewis what he'd learned in previous relationships, especially as far as communication is concerned. I would say a big thing without a relationship is communication. And I would say that both of us, back and forth, have always been super open to each other about literally anything, even the most embarrassing little things in previous relationships.

Fletcher Petrucci
I think I've struggled with that because it's always seemed like there's been this weird disconnect where I feel like there shouldn't be. In addition to communication, Fletcher also sees boundaries and layers of a relationship the same way that Lewis does. He is my boyfriend, but at the end of the day, he's also my friend. And we have that connection where it's not just a meetup, have sex, go on a date night thing. We have all this other stuff that we do outside of that that I think makes our relationship so much more interesting and keeps it fun.

The space thing is new to me. Every other relationship I've ever been in, we've been a constant up each other's ass, whereas this one, I felt like I had to back off a little bit and give a little bit more space. Once I did that, I kind of realized that, oh, it was better for both of us because we aren't getting tired of each other. When we see each other, it makes it more special. I kind of like that about our relationship.

Los Angoltira
We give each other boundaries and space, but also at the same time, I think it makes our time together more important and more valuable. And it's in that shared time together, both exploring abandoned spaces the way they both enjoy doing that. Lewis and Fletcher have had some truly unique experiences, including scarier ones that have illuminated their own deeper understandings of abandoned spaces. One of the things with abandoned spaces is that there's kind of a mysterious aspect to them. We find that to be more prevalent in abandoned spaces out in the plains, not just about how people abandoned them, but what other things are going on with them.

Blake Pfeil
But it was one particular experience at an abandoned space that really gave them a mystery to ponder. Fletcher and I had been exploring this abandoned farmhouse. We've been there a couple times. It was all intact. The house had no trespassing signs, had no barriers in front.

Los Angoltira
Everything was left in the back. Someone had been housing about 30 dogs. In these makeshift cages, cages made up of miscellaneous building materials. So it looked like somebody had tied together pallets and fences and tarps over top of it with, like 30 dogs inside of the enclosures.

One of our inferences on it was someone squatting. In a sense. It's not the property owner of that house. It's someone else that's just using this property for these dogs for whatever reason. And there are no houses around, and we called animal control to see if they can come out.

We haven't heard anything back yet, but it is one example of strange happenings that occur out in the nomads land of the plains.

Blake Pfeil
Of course, its not all spooky, scary inferences of what might have happened in any given abandoned space. In fact, thats a pretty rare occurrence, at least in my experience. But more importantly, it's the beauty of what these spaces represent, the stories they tell through the wreckage of what's left behind. There's this video I have up right now of this old Kmart building that was built on the top of this house that burned down when this family. Was inside Kmart stores.

They understand Kmart is your saving store. People are still coming back to this video and telling me about how they used to shop at this Kmart and, like, it's just minuscule little things like that where I've captured this space in this moment where it may be dead and abandoned, but somebody comes back and looks at it, and then they get this memory from watching this video. Like, oh, well, I stayed at this hotel, or, oh, I got married here, or, oh, I used to shop here with my kids, or, I remember my mom taking me here. And that always brings me a lot of joy. Like, oh, my God, I can't believe you, like, documented this.

Buried in the walls of abandoned America are stories about our history, who we are, where we've been, where we're going. Symbols of both the failures and the resiliency of our humanity. Folk tales about finding and depending on and celebrating community, both accurate and embellished. And memories, a vast universe of memories where people, in the midst of all the collective trauma and turmoil, can hopefully remember why being alive is as magical as it is horrifying, if we're so lucky to be there at all. I have basically, in a way, preserved history.

Capturing these elusive stories and preserving them is, I think, vital to perpetuating the human race's existence. If we can't lean into our past to help us out in our present, then how can we expect to make an ongoing future for ourselves? There was a quote that I remember hearing about from some explorer who said that basically, abandoned spaces are almost like the fourth dimension. It's a dimension that you can't really replicate anywhere else. I guess the opposite of a metropolis, a happy sort of place, but that a lot of people view as being depressed or not worthy of exploring.

Los Angoltira
But an explorer's eyes, it's very much a lie. A lot that people don't see on the surface, that we explorers experience, understand.

Blake Pfeil
Remember that best first date I asked you to think about at the beginning of the episode? Do you remember what you talked about on that date? I weld Sletcher's drive to experience new places and pick up different things. I hope that I influenced him for some of that stuff. As you revealed more to each other through conversation, did your interest only grow because you'd realized you suddenly met someone who saw the world the same way you do?

Maybe that your values were aligned, that you both wanted to live your individual lives in a certain way that somehow felt compatible to one another, even though you couldn't quite put your finger on what it was that made them so compatible. I admire the way that he looks at life, always wanting to go to, like, a penny arcade or something. Like that. Even now he has me pointing out signs and things like that, little things that I wouldn't have noticed before, but he immediately catches on to it. I admire Fletcher for his willingness to just pick up anything and go on an adventure.

Los Angoltira
He's just a really great storyteller, and I really admire that Falcon. I really admire Fletcher's ability to document history through videography. It also just boils down to the memory of the experience as well. The things we say when we're walking around in an abandoned space. Both Lewis and Fletcher find so much value in the other and focus on sharing those admirations with each other openly, honestly.

Blake Pfeil
It helps them grow as individuals, which in turn helps keep their relationship healthy, strong and constantly expanding. Oh my God. If you need a playlist for any occasion, he can pull out like five records within a minute. Overall, he's just a really positive person and always has a different outlook on things that may be negatives, and he's always finding a solution or some way to be happy and bouncy about it. Louis brings a light into a room.

Fletcher Petrucci
I don't know how he does it because there's no I can't really put a finger on exactly. There's a lot of different little things. But if we're having a party or a dinner party at the house, somehow Lewis is always like the driving light.

Blake Pfeil
If you're just tuning in, then welcome to the second season of Abandoned the All American Ruins podcast. I hope you enjoyed listening to this bonus episode as much as I enjoyed making it. Well, keep them coming out until season three drops in the fall sometime. Until then, seasons one and two are available wherever you get your podcasts, so make sure you subscribe. Also, if you like to read or enjoy amateur photography, just know that you can catch up on more of my adventures@allamericanruins.com.

or follow me on instagram at allamericanruins abandoned the All American Ruins podcast is written, engineered, hosted, edited, mixed and produced by me Blake File with studio space courtesy of Radio Kingston, WKNY AM 1490 FM 179 in Kingston, New York. Thanks for listening.