HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
The Spiritualist Mansion With No Right Angles
1904 Cherry Valley Rd, Bull Valley, IL 60098
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to view exterior; interior is the Bull Valley police headquarters and not open to public tours.
Access
Limited Access
Paved road and grass verge
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1865 · National Register of Historic Places · American Spiritualism · McHenry County Architecture
George and Sylvia Stickney moved to McHenry County from New York in the 1840s and completed their Bull Valley home around 1865. The two-story structure follows an English country plan: living and domestic spaces on the ground floor, with the second floor given entirely to a ballroom. Both Stickneys were practicing spiritualists, and local tradition holds that the rounded corners — visible most clearly on the exterior of the building and in the gentle curves of the window arches — were specified to prevent spirits from becoming trapped in 90-degree angles during the seances they hosted.
The house passed through several private owners after the Stickneys' deaths and gradually deteriorated through the early twentieth century. In 1985 the Village of Bull Valley purchased the building and converted it into municipal offices and the village police headquarters. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and remains the most recognizable structure in the small unincorporated village.
Most interior right-angle modifications have been made over the years to accommodate office furniture and municipal use, but the curved exterior corners and several rounded interior features survive.
Sources
The most-repeated story attached to the house is that George Stickney died in the single right-angled corner of an otherwise rounded interior. The detail circulates in newspaper features and Atlas Obscura's entry but is not anchored in surviving primary records — period sources record Stickney's death but not the specific circumstances. The story is best read as folklore that grew around the house's unusual geometry rather than as documented history.
Reports collected from village staff and visiting officers describe footsteps on the empty second floor (the former ballroom), doors that close in still air, and a recurring impression that someone is present in unoccupied rooms after dark. The Bull Valley Police Department maintains a low-key relationship with the building's reputation; the department does not run tours or paranormal programming, and access to the interior is generally limited to official business.
The house is regularly cited in Illinois ghost-tour itineraries, though no major paranormal television series has filmed a full episode there.
Notable Entities
View the 1865 mansion from the public road. The building is the active Bull Valley Police Department; the interior is not open to visitors and the parking lot is reserved for staff and police business.
View the curved-corner Italianate facade from Cherry Valley Road. The Stickneys built the house in 1865 with rounded interior corners on the perimeter rooms — a Spiritualist design intended to leave spirits no place to hide. The building is now the Bull Valley Police Department; respect signage and do not approach the doors.
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