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 early days of TAPS, and it's never been more true than when we walked through the doors of The 1890 House Museum in Cortland, New York. This Gilded Age stone mansion — built by industrialist Chester F. Wickwire and his family — is one of those places that stops you cold the moment you see it.

I've walked into a lot of buildings over the years. Asylums, prisons, lighthouses, hotels — you name it. But there's something about a private family home from the 1890s that hits differently. The moment we pulled up to The 1890 House and I got a look at that massive stone exterior and the tower rising above the roofline, I knew we were dealing with something special. This wasn't built to be a public building. It was built to be a home. And that matters when you're trying to understand why people report the things they report inside.

One of the things I always push my team on is doing the homework before we ever set up a single piece of equipment. History is context. If someone tells me they're hearing footsteps on the third floor, I want to know who lived on the third floor. I want to know what happened in that room, who slept there, who might have had a reason to still be there — if you believe in that kind of thing. Chester Wickwire was a serious figure. An industrialist who built his fortune and then built this mansion to show for it. Walking through the rooms — the detailed woodwork, the elaborate architecture, the sheer scale of what this family lived in — you start to get a picture of the kind of life that was lived here and the kind of personalities involved. That context is going to be critical once we start the investigation.

On this visit, we focused entirely on the tour and the history. We explored the rooms, talked about the architecture, and learned about the Wickwire family and the people who passed through this house during its lifetime. I make a point of doing this before any investigation because I've seen too many teams rush to set up cameras and start calling out into the dark without the first clue about where they are or who they're talking to. That's not how I operate. If there is something here — and I'm not saying there is — I want to approach it with respect and with knowledge. And if there isn't something here, understanding the building is going to help me explain whatever it is people are experiencing.

What struck me most during the tour was just how intact this place is. Walking through The 1890 House feels like stepping directly into the Gilded Age. The woodwork alone is extraordinary — the kind of craftsmanship you simply don't see anymore. Every room tells you something about the family, about the era, about the priorities and personalities of the people who called this place home. By the time we finished the walkthrough, I felt like I had a genuine sense of the building's layout, its history, and the areas most likely to be significant once we begin the investigation. Now it's time to come back after dark and find out what's really going on inside these walls.

The 1890 House is a remarkable building with a deep history, and that history is going to play a central role in how we approach our investigation. I go into every location as a skeptic — my job is to find the explanation, not confirm the legend. But I'd be lying if I said this place didn't leave an impression. The investigation is next, and I can't wait to get back inside.