Dead Air Valley: "The Eight-Sided House and the Lady in White"

In Irvington, Westchester County, the eight-sided Armour-Stiner Octagon House at 45 West Clinton Avenue is staging its own ghost story. Author Carl Carmer lived in the house from 1946 to 1976 and wrote the Lady in White tale of a Hudson steamboat disaster. This fall the house performs that story as an immersive tour through its own rooms, October 16 to November 1, tickets $58, followed by the Remember You Must Die Memento Mori exhibition. Silas Van Wyck tells it straight: Fowler's octagon idea, the Armour and Stiner house, the fragrant ghost that followed the Carmers from Manhattan, and Carmer's full story of the elopement, the steamboat race, and the boiler explosion at the Palisades. Sources: Hudson Valley Tourism, Visit Sleepy Hollow, Sleepy Hollow Country, and the Armour-Stiner Octagon House.

Cover photo: DutchTreat / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0