"Do you dare to enter the realm?" is a question that's often been asked on radio ads across Chicagoland over the years.
Now the question has become "Do you dare to enter the final realm?"
Reaper's Realm Haunted House, one of the most popular haunted houses in Northwest Indiana and greater Chicagoland, is coming back for a 36th and final year. It will be the last chance to venture through the three floors of terror in the mist-shrouded woods at 626 177th St., Hammond.
It will come back with a new format in which the public designs the rooms at the sprawling stone mansion on the banks of the Little Calumet River.
The plan is to open on Oct. 11, South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority spokeswoman Stephanie Smith said.
The City of Hammond is seizing the former Indiana Botanic Gardens property on the Little Cal through eminent domain, with the hope of redeveloping the prime site just off the Borman Expressway to increase the city's assessed valuation at a time when schools are closing and laying off teachers. Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said the property is underutilized as a seasonal haunted house and fireworks stand, and wants to bring in new developments like restaurants or other businesses serving highway traffic.
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Reaper's Realm is being driven out, but Hammond agreed to let it spook visitors one last time. The owner, John Hluska, a retired Munster police officer, is opening the doors of the 100-year-old stone mansion filled with ghouls, chainsaw-wielding maniacs and other frights one last time.
“This year, we’re going all out. No holds barred. This is our 'go big or go home' grand finale,” Reapers Realm Director of Business Development Nicole Hluska said. “So, we ask you— if you could create one room … a horrifyingly spectacular room within a haunted house, what would it be?”
Reaper's Realm is asking the public to enter a contest to come up with the scariest room, which runs from Thursday through Sept. 24. The owners said the winner gets an all-inclusive seven-day, six-night trip for four to Riveria Maya. Reapers Realm visitors will get the chance to vote for their favorite room after they leave the haunted house, with the vote tallied on Halloween night.
“We had to give the community one last hurrah,” Hluska said. “For the first time ever, we’re proudly partnering with some of your favorite local businesses, such as Byway Brewing, who will be hosting our Grim Beer Garden. This is going to be the party of the century, that you won’t want to miss."
Haunted House Chicago will partner with Reapers Realm for its last hurrah.
“Reaper's Realm is a mainstay of the Chicagoland Haunted House industry, and has helped set the bar for over 35 years," Haunted House Chicago Founder Kris Zahrobsky said.
For decades, Reaper's Realm has operated out of the former Indiana Botanic Gardens English gabled mansion that Joseph Meyer built in 1926 as a headquarters for his medicinal herb mail-order company, which became a major national business that minted him as Lake County's first millionaire.
He served people throughout the country with the Sears catalog-like publications "The Herbalist" and "The Herbalist Almanac," providing herbal remedies to largely rural areas at a time when doctors were few and far between. The venture was so successful he built the massive Scottish-style Meyer Castle in Dyer as his personal residence.
The Hammond mansion was transformed into Reaper's Realm, which is filled with spooky fog, strobe lights, mazes of mirrors, slides of death, haunted woods and countless jump squares. Every fall, just before Halloween, it crawls with evil clown, slasher movie icons and other ghouls hiding in the dark, waiting to pop out when visitors least suspect it.
Reaper's Realm has proven hugely popular over the years, drawing visitors from across Chicagoland as well as from neighboring states like Michigan and Ohio. The lines often stretch for two or three hours during peak weekend times in the run-up to Halloween.
A look back at Northwest Indiana businesses that closed in 2023
A look back at Region businesses that closed in 2023
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