Mount Carroll haunted house will have you grinning from fear to fear

MOUNT CARROLL – Halloween is getting scary close. For some, like Jim Warfield, every day is All Hallows’ Eve.

The 67-year-old not only runs, but lives in a haunted house with his wife, Jessica. You need not wait until late-October to take a tour. Raven’s Grin Inn is open year-round.

The house was built in 1870 and has been a schoolhouse, a speakeasy, and a car dealership, among other things.

Warfield, 67, said he made his home into a haunted house for entertainment purposes, but many people have claimed to have had real supernatural experiences while inside his home.

“People would go down to the wine cellar during the tour and I would walk down the steps and they would say, ‘Wow! That was really neat, how’d you do that?’ and I said ‘What?’ and they said, ‘That woman back there in the corner with the dark hair and the white dress, she floated across the room,’” said Warfield.

The only problem is: that wasn’t part of the attraction.

Warfield said people have had similar experiences in the wine cellar.

Despite living in a house that has had a plethora of ghost sightings, he said it doesn’t bother him very much because the ghosts seem to mind their own business for the most part.

Warfield said Raven’s Grin is a haunted house that all ages truly can enjoy, which is why he adds a little bit of humor to his tours.

“We try to have fun here, and I’ve had some people halfway through the house ask me to stop making them laugh because their face hurts,” he said.

Some might wonder where the name Raven’s Grin originated. According to Warfield, it has some literary and comedic affiliations.

“I sat down and thought about it for a long time before I came up with the name. I had about 85 different names I had come up with,” Warfield said. “One of the most popular poems in the United States was Edgar Alan Poe’s ‘The Raven’. It’s spooky, but it’s not over the top, but I wanted to entertain people, not terrorize them, so the raven is grinning.”

The house is four stories with dozens of rooms.

Warfield takes his customers on a room-by-room, hour-long tour filled with twists, turns, tunnels, secret passages and much more. All while delivering his own monologue of the house’s haunted history.

He purchased the house in 1988 for $3,000, against the wishes of many folks in town who warned him it was haunted.

At the time, there was no working electricity or plumbing in the house. Warfield has spent countless hours turning it into the haunted house of his dreams.

“I make all of my own stuff; I try not to copy other people,” he said.

As for the art of scaring, Warfield said it’s all about the build-up and less about the jumpy scares.

“Having a haunted house, you have to set people up for it, you have to make their anticipation level go up,” he said. “My house is not like a Hollywood horror movie. I think Hollywood does a big disservice with most of the movies they make because ... they take something that’s more subtle and then they keep adding on to it and adding on to it.”

It’s all about the perfect balance of humor and horror, Warfield said.

For instance, one of the many tales visitors will hear centers on a graveyard just across the parking lot and beyond a wooded area near his house.

“I like to tell people that right beyond those trees is a graveyard ... 6,500 cold, hard stones. There’s a lot of dead people buried up there, most of my relatives are buried there, and most of them – are dead,” he said with a cackle. “The tallest stone you’ll find in that graveyard has my last name on it.”

RAVEN’S GRIN INN

Address: 411 N Carroll St., Mount Carroll

Phone: 815-244-4746

Website: hauntedravensgrin.com and on Facebook

Email: ravensgrin@grics.net

Hours: 7 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday; and 2 to 5 p.m. and 7 to midnight Saturday and Sunday

Admission: $15 for adults, $13 for children under 9