Willoughby Hills, Ohio
What started out as a gesture of love, wound up becoming a tribute to a lost loved one, supposedly. As the story goes, Feargus Squire, a VP of Standard Oil Company, bought the land in Willoughby Hills with the intention of building a massive stone estate. Construction started with the gatehouse, which is where things went sideways. According to legends, Squire’s wife, Rebecca hated living in the “country” as it was back in the 1890s, and went mad. She eventually tripped and fell down the steps from the third floor, breaking her neck in the process. As a result, the estate was never finished and is haunted by her ghost.
While Squire’s castle might be haunted, based on the tales of a woman with a red lantern appearing in the windows at night, something dark and moving around the building, and the menacing vibes that comes off of it, the truth is that the ghost probably isn’t that of Rebecca Squires.
The Verified History of Squire’s Castle
The initial part of the story is true. Feargus Squire did indeed work for Standard Oil Company, purchased the land for his estate in Willoughby Hills, and had the gatehouse built. However, his wife didn’t die there. As it turns out, she hated living in the country, so they stopped construction on the property and lived in the couple’s main house in Wickliffe.
Feargus Squire used the gatehouse as a country getaway for himself and his daughter, Irma, for a time before selling the entire property to a developer in 1922. Rebecca Squire, his wife, died in Wickliffe in 1929, not at Squire’s Castle.
Seven years after the property was sold, the fledgling Metroparks purchased it. The land became North Chagrin Reservation, and the castle became a popular picnic and photo location. Over time, they made the building safer by removing the staircase and upper floor, and filling in the basement. The castle as it still stands is a husk of what it used to be, but it still has an allure that draws people to it.
Found in Ohio 