Inside The 1890 House: Exploring Cortland's Gilded Age Mansion Before the Lights Go Out

Before you can investigate a location, you have to understand it. That's something I've believed since the earliest days of TAPS, and it's exactly why we spent serious time walking through The 1890 House Museum in Cortland, New York before we ever turned off the lights. Built during the Gilded Age and once home to industrialist Chester F. Wickwire and his family, this stone mansion stopped me in my tracks the moment I laid eyes on it.

I've walked into a lot of historic buildings over the years. After decades of investigating, you'd think the sense of awe would wear off. It doesn't. The moment you pull up to The 1890 House and see that massive stone exterior, that tower rising above the roofline, the craftsmanship worked into every corner of the facade — you know immediately that this isn't just a house. This was a statement. Chester Wickwire built this place to reflect everything he had achieved, and more than a century later, it still does exactly that.

Our approach to any investigation always starts the same way: history first, equipment second. I've seen too many investigators rush straight to the dark corners with their gear, and what they end up with is a collection of unexplained moments they have no context for. Context matters enormously in this work. When you understand who lived in a building, what they experienced, what happened within those walls — you give yourself a fighting chance at actually interpreting what you encounter later on. So before we set up a single piece of equipment, we took the time to really explore The 1890 House, room by room, floor by floor.

What struck me most during the tour was the detail. The woodwork inside this mansion is extraordinary — intricate carvings, elaborate millwork, the kind of craftsmanship that simply doesn't exist in construction today. Each room tells you something about the family that lived here and the era that produced them. The Wickwires were people of significant means and taste, and they filled this home with both. But beyond the aesthetic, I was paying attention to the layout — the staircases, the servant quarters, the narrow corridors, the acoustics of the stone walls. All of that becomes critical information once the investigation begins. A house this old, built the way this one was, is going to produce sounds, drafts and environmental conditions that a less-prepared investigator could easily mistake for something paranormal.

That's the core of what I do, and what TAPS has always stood for. We go in as skeptics. Our first job is to find the rational explanation — the settling foundation, the HVAC system moving air through old ductwork, the way sound travels through stone and plaster in ways that seem impossible until you map it out. Only after we've genuinely exhausted those explanations do we start considering that something else might be going on. The 1890 House gave us a lot to think about during that tour phase. The history of the Wickwire family, the lives of the people who served in this home, the decades of use this building has seen as a museum — all of it layers together into a picture that you absolutely need before you step into the dark. The investigation is coming, and now we're ready for it.

The 1890 House Museum is one of the most visually stunning and historically rich locations I've had the opportunity to explore, and the tour alone made clear why reports of unusual activity here have persisted for so long. Whether those reports hold up under a proper investigation is the question we set out to answer. Stay subscribed — the investigation episode is next, and this is one location I don't think any of us will forget.