story
The Phantom Manor is a local haunt that popped up out of nowhere. Some people find it driving or walking by, others word of mouth or in the rumor mill. It's not a place people recommend because they went to it, but because they heard it was a cool, spooky place to go.
You are visiting with one or a few friends, people who you like to do haunted houses with, or perhaps you're all going to your first one. It's a thunderous night, though without rain, and the air is cool and crisp. The leaves have just begun to change and you can appreciate them in the glow created by the almost incessant lightning in the sky.
The manor is surrounded by an inexplicable fog, because although it's dark and stormy, it's otherwise a very clear night and the fog is only around the manor.
Click the front door to step in the haunted attraction. You walk into a dark hallway with two colorful doors; the room has an eerie and hollow echo like you're in a basement, but you're not. After a moment, a booming voice echoes to announce the manor and welcome you to choose your path.
The Phantom Manor is dedicated to improving the experience for all visitors and will adjust rooms to add sensory warnings, ramps, and make other structrual and design changes as required. We apologize for the lack of foresight in the initial launch. Find content warnings below but be aware that they contain attraction spoilers.
credits
Phantom Manor:
- Gifs from gifcities.org and linked to their original creators
- Sound effects from pixabay.com/sound-effects
- Some layout templates from kalechips.net/projects/layouts
- Background images from wallpapercave.com
This page:
- Screencapture done with Snagit
- Video editing done with Capcut
- Flyer created in Canva
- Layout adapted from a kalechips offering
walkthrough
Warning! Spoilers Ahead!
If you'd like to experience the Phantom Manor with no prior context, read the rest of this page AFTER you visit the website.
Rooms
| Room | Theme | Content Warning |
|---|---|---|
| Index: Enter the manor | Getting into the mood (including website content warnings) | Flashing image |
| Dark Room | Also known as "door room" or "main hallway," this takes you to the main attractions | Audio auto plays when you mouseover text |
| Halloween Room | Transition room to specifically Halloween-themed rooms | Moving GIFs, audio auto plays when you mouseover text, flashing door |
| Crypt | Transition space to other rooms | Audio auto plays when you mouseover text |
| Graveyard | Death, dying, cemeteries, honoring the dead | Detailed descriptions of death |
| Hidden Bookshelf Room | All about Halloween and my history and context with the holiday | |
| Enchanted Forest | Creatures and monsters, mythology, folklore | |
| Hall of Mirrors | Photographs and experiences | |
| Clown Room | Stories and ghost tales, zines/downloads | Moving GIFs |
| Jail | Claustrophobic and trapped - a choose your own adventure path with only one way out | Gross things (mold, bloody teeth), moving GIFs |
| Taffy Room | Transition room to playful party rooms | Moving GIFs, audio auto plays when you mouseover text |
| Music Room | It's a Halloween dance party! | |
| Spaceship | Halloween movies and horror |
Video Walkthrough
The video below (3 min 18 sec) shows a brief walkthrough of the manor. There is no "correct" path to take, so this is only one path option. Some things may not be obvious when you visit, so this gives a summary of what the whole manor currently offers.
The manor is open year-round, but every October there are new activities, doors, and paths going through the maze of this home (this aligns with my development schedule for this site).
Thank you for a successful year! Check back next October to see more additions to the manor!
dead letter mail instructions
In the Phantom Manor Graveyard there is a small post office to leave letters to or from the dead. The form includes some fields that you may not know how to fill out.
- Your name: Optional, if you want to take credit for this
- To: Who is the letter TO? Put their name here
- From: Who is the letter FROM? Put their name here
- Who died?: Regardless of the to/from, what dead person is this in reference to?
- Advice for the living: Advice for people who still have years left
- Message: Contents of the letter
Examples:
- Letters from the dead to you, a person, or a group of people, or the world
- Letters to the dead from you, between family members, or from one dead person to another
- Letters between the living about the dead
- Fictional characters who have died, musicians, actors, family members, people in history
- Advice inspired by the dead person or which they gave while they were living
- Advice you personally have to give
- Check the Dead Letters Office in the Phantom Manor Graveyard to find more examples!
easter eggs
Warning! Spoilers Ahead!
If you'd like to experience the Phantom Manor with no prior context, read the rest of this page AFTER you visit the website.
- Mouseover doors for a hint of where you're going (target path shows door/room name)
- Click gifs to go to the archived site where I got them via gifcities search (they open in a new tab to the original page)
- Audio autoplay actions: If it doesn't play at first, wait until the page loads, click somewhere, then do the action explained below to trigger the sound.
- Index: Mouseover the door (creaking door noise)
- Dark Room: Mouseover the intro text (eerie background noise)
- Halloween Room: Mouseover the intro text (spooky piano background noise)
- Crypt: Mouseover the intro text (spooky windchimes background noise)
- Taffy Room: Mouseover the intro text ("trick or treat" noise)
- Mouseover sounds will overlap if you mouseover again, making a chaotic experience with a different spooky sound each time
- Fairy Forest: Click the Metro map stops to see descriptions of each
- The Halloween Room is a reference to a room inside Biltmore in Ashville, NC, also called The Halloween Room.
- The Dead Musicians Hall in the Phantom Manor Graveyard is a reference to Hall of Fame. (We know it is not a hall.)
- The first message in the Dead Letters Office to Kurt Cobain from a fan was inspired by a Reddit post I saw discussing how the children of millennials are getting into 90s grunge. It summarizes the mood and message of many post comments.
- The Music Room is unfinished; in the meantime, it features a 2025 spooky album release from Fries on the Side called "Musical Scares." A friend told me about it the DAY I was giving up on coding that page.
- There is no door to leave the manor. Once you enter, you can never leave.