Crystal Lake is a popular and booming northwest suburb of Chicago. Growth is so dramatic that homes are likely to sell nearly as soon as they go on the market. However, just north of the city, a bit off of the beaten path, you'll find a rather unusual but large stately home that no one seems to want.
This remnant of the past, was built in 1849 by George and Sylvia Stickney. Unfortunately, George and Sylvia (or someone) still appears to inhabit the house. Persistent disembodied sounds and strange occurrences night or day, have caused more recent owners to abruptly vacate the house and give it back to the Stickneys.
The Stickneys were seriously involved in the Spiritualist Movement that was considered to be fashionably vogue in the Victorian era.
The house started to gain it's rather dark and sinister reputation early in its existence. The Stickneys were known to hold frequent and numerous sances in the house, and socialites from Chicago and other mid-western cities, traveled to the remote country house in hopes of communicating with the dear departed.
A rather unique architectural characteristic of the house, is that it was built almost exclusively without corners. One set of Spiritualist beliefs theorized that evil could sometimes be trapped or lurk in the corners of a normally shaped square room.
Only one room in the house was built with a 90-degree corner. Allegedly, it was in this corner that George Stickney was found dead with a frozen terrified expression on his face, and his hands clutching at his throat. His exact cause of death, however, remains a mystery.
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