Popular Farnum Haunt opens on Big Pond Road this weekend!
By Sharon E. Siegel
HUGUENOT, NY – The Farnum Haunt is a legend in the Tri-States community, and for good reason. Once known as the Farnum House Haunting, this very popular event is back in full force – now in its 21st spooky year of operation – for anyone of any age to enjoy for the next three weekends.
This year’s haunt offers the same volume of Halloween experiences as in the past, but – as
always – with new ideas and construction.
The event was first held at Port Jervis’ Erie Hotel in 2006. It then moved to the city-owned Farnum House, where it operated annually as the Farnum House Haunting for more than a decade. For the past few years, the haunt (renamed Farnum Haunt) has taken place at the wooded former YMCA camp located at 160 Big Pond Road, Huguenot. This location has given the event’s creators and owners, Brian Dewey and Amy Hoverstock -- and their annual crew of student and adult volunteers -- space to expand the haunt's ideas and construction options for visitors to experience.
This year’s components include leaning subway cars with sensory rooms and various spooky stops for visitors to explore and experience, along with actors and actresses to interact with. There is also a theatre with spooky theatre seats, stage, vintage pipe organ, dressing room, and refreshment stand and customized goodies. Other areas, including marked paths through the woods, include a theatre and benches along a lake, a dark maze, historic cemetery, abandoned cabins, and costumed high school actors stationed along the route.
In addition to the regular haunt, which Dewey said estimates an hour to hour-and-a-half to experience, no-scare self-paced haunts are available. These allow those who may be reluctant a chance to walk through the event without scary movements or actor input. The no-scare haunts may be requested of the hosts, and are then signaled by flashlights alerting those involved in the haunt.
Dewey, reached this week in advance of this weekend’s opening haunt, said he and Amy and approximately 15 adult volunteers enjoy working with the high school students that get involved annually. They enjoy seeing how much fun the event brings to the students and to their community.
The difficult part is the time required to be invested in building the sets each year. Construction typically starts six months in advance, with some of the adults working on the project every day over the recent past three months. The time element is intense, but is something Dewey and Hoverstock do not mind giving as they love giving back to their community.
“If we were not doing this, we would find other ways to be involved in helping,” Dewey said.
While they have a dedicated core group of volunteers, Dewey said it is however getting harder to get volunteers each year.
“People work, and this requires a lot of time. It started much smaller, and at the time Amy and I pretty much invested our own money and time in the beginning. Since then, it’s become a very large-scale haunt, within a small-scale budget and low admission fee. What we do is go out in advance to large-scale haunts in other places, and bring back cool ideas at a smaller scale so that our community can afford to experience large-scale events at an affordable cost,” Dewey said.
The funds raised through the haunt are now pretty much breaking even, according to Dewey, after the presentation of annual scholarships to high school seniors who volunteer at the haunt and a thank you get-together once the haunt is over.
The Farnum Haunt is located off of Route 209, Huguenot, at 160 Big Pond Road. It is on wooded former YMCA camp land, located at the top of a winding hill. There are signs pointing the way, and roped off foot paths to guide visitors along the haunt once they arrive and park.
Haunt dates and times are:
10/09 - 10/11, Friday 7 p.m., Saturday 6 p.m., Sunday 5 p.m.
10/16 - 10/18, Friday 7 p.m., Saturday 6 p.m., Sunday 5 p.m.
10/23 - 10/25, Friday 7 p.m., Saturday 6 p.m., Sunday 5 p.m.
Reminders from the hosts: 1. Cash only. 2. Most of the actors are HIGH SCHOOL students, so please be mindful of your behavior. 3. HAVE FUN!
A sample of just some of the components of this year's haunt:
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