Recap on Hallo-Weekend: Llenroc Haunted House

On the day before Halloween, Ezra Cornell’s old mansion was transformed into a haunted asylum to be open to the public for guided tours.

Now known as Llenroc, the home of Delta Phi Fraternity, the house is used to host one the biggest joint philanthropy events of the semester between Delta Phi and Kappa Delta.

Each year, the two Greek houses get together to decorate the first floor and basement all the way up to the house’s high ceilings with webs, props and many other grotesque curiosities.

A cast is assigned from both houses to act as crazy patients, cruel medical assistants and blood-thirty doctors, tasked with scarring the crowds that are led through the house by the assigned tour guides.

A fraction of the haunted cast.

Plastic human body parts and fake blood covered the entirety of the basement and the dining area. There were actors popping out from under tables, from behind plastic sheets hung from the walls and virtually every dark corner.

A few of the most memorable performances took pace in the treatment room, the operations room and the last, pitch black room that stood between the tour group and the exit.

Actors in the treatment room were crawling all over the floors, playing with fake organs and decapitated heads as the main act was taking place.

It is rumored that one of the hearts was not fake at all (the heart held below), but in fact a deer’s heart that was donated by one of the brothers from his father’s recent hunting trips.

Could that be a real deer heart?

The basement, which was the final destination for many patients that disobeyed their orderlies, was the domain of Ithaca’s star lobotomists, Dr. Francoise.

The actor did an amazing job scarring the crowds as he ranted in a thick Russian accent about the wonders of his medical practice, over an interesting spectacle lying on his operating table.

Proceeding from the operation room and the asylum’s morgue, the groups had to pass through a dark room that had a few more frights waiting for them right before they exited the house.

The costume and make-up really struck a cord.

The event was ultimately a huge success.

The fee for going on the tour was $5 and all of the money was directed towards Delta Phi’s and Kappa Delta’s primary philanthropies, which are respectively the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Prevent Child Abuse America.

It went from 8pm to 10:30pm (half an hour longer than originally intended) and had lines of people extending out the front door.

If you didn’t get a chance to stop by this year, be sure to come by next Halloweekend!

I took good care to leave the spookiest parts out, so if you’re curious, come experience it for yourself … if you dare.