HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
+ 1 further entry on record
42-room 1898 Gesangverein Hall in Cleveland's Central neighborhood that served as a German singing hall, hospital, and J. Walter Wills's Black-owned funeral home before closing in 2005.
2491 E 55th Street, Cleveland, OH 44104
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Tour pricing varies by event. Current owner Eric Freeman hosts seasonal Halloween tours.
Access
Limited Access
Historic 42-room building with multiple levels, narrow corridors, and unfinished restoration; significant climbing and uneven surfaces
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1898 · African American Funeral-Industry Heritage · Cleveland Central Neighborhood · J. Walter Wills Sr. Legacy · Adaptive Reuse / Preservation
The building at 2491 East 55th Street was built in 1898 as a German singing club called Gesangverein Hall. Over the next four decades it served a succession of community functions: a Hungarian immigrants' hospital, the Cleveland Hebrew Institute (a Jewish day school), and a Masonic lodge. The 42-room structure includes auditorium-scale gathering spaces, classrooms, dormitory bedrooms, and former chapel spaces.
In 1941 J. Walter Wills Sr., a Cleveland businessman who had operated funeral parlors in the Central neighborhood since 1904, purchased and converted the property into the J. Walter Wills Funeral Home. The business grew to become one of the largest African American-owned funeral homes in Ohio, serving Cleveland's Central and Glenville communities. Wills was a founder of the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP and a leading civic figure; in his later years he and his family lived in the building's upper floors.
J. Walter Wills Sr. died in 1971. The business continued under family operation until its final closure in 2005, with the building falling into significant disrepair afterward.
In 2010 Cleveland resident Eric Freeman purchased the property for approximately $20,000 and began an ongoing preservation and adaptive-reuse effort. Freeman has opened the building for seasonal Halloween tours, film shoots, and special events, while raising funds for structural restoration. The property is described as one of Cleveland's most architecturally significant African American-heritage sites.
Sources
According to Cleveland Vintage and Signal Cleveland's coverage of Eric Freeman's tours, the most frequently described phenomenon at the House of Wills is a whitish, semi-transparent apparition seen looking down from an upstairs window — visible both from the street and from inside the building. Visitors to the funeral home have reported phantom footsteps in the corridors, a disembodied voice that calls them by name, shadow figures along the staircases, and inexplicable mists in the auditorium and rear chapel.
Local paranormal groups, including Fringe Paranormal, have investigated the property and reported voice anomalies on audio recordings (EVPs) and brief glimpses of figures on the upper floors. Tour guides discuss the building's layered history of community use — a hospital, a school, a funeral home — and frame the activity in terms of generations of community grief and life-transition events that took place in the building. Eric Freeman has described his ownership philosophy in terms of preserving the building's spiritual as well as physical history.
An upstairs bedroom is described as the most paranormally active room in the building.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Owner Eric Freeman leads seasonal guided tours through the 42-room building, walking guests through its layered history as a singing hall, hospital, school, and one of Ohio's largest African American-owned funeral homes. Tours have been documented by Signal Cleveland and Atlas Obscura.
The current ownership rents the building to paranormal-investigation teams by appointment. A third-floor bedroom is a focal point of the building's paranormal lore.
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