This is one of my favorite photos I have ever taken in an abandoned place, and one of my favorite memories. I took this photo in 2009, before this home eventually fell to pieces and the rest was demolished.

We visited this home on a cold, windy day in December of 2009. The home sat at the edge of a tall cliff, leaning towards the lake. At this point, the house was falling apart at the back from years of erosion. This left us just enough space to climb up beneath the back porch, which hung out over the cliff’s edge. Balancing on some rocks, and bracing ourselves on areas of the house, we were able to make our way beneath the crumbling porch. As we climbed up, I could hear water crashing to the shore of the beach below, while winds howled through the mangled remains of wall on the porch, where we had climbed in. The floor was askew, leaning towards a steep incline, which lead to the beach below. We began our climb into the home, grabbing onto the broken floorboards. The wood had become rather weak with water damage, crumbling as we climbed. Once we had climbed enough, the floor had leveled out. Thankfully we were then able to grab ahold of some furniture to pull ourselves up slowly, careful not to slip and go sliding down the cliffside. Once inside, we found a plethora of discarded, forgotten items. Books, photos, furniture, food, and so much more just left behind. The home was dark and quiet, and all we could do was talk back and forth about the local legends we knew of the home.

Locals had always told stories of this home. One story being that the family who had previously lived here was killed by their father, who later shot himself in the garage. Many other stories of it being that it was simply a dark and deserted crack house. Whether or not any of these stories were true didn’t matter; it made our adventure that much more worthwhile for the pure “creep value.”

The only light that made its way inside was through this one window in the kitchen. Every other window on the home was covered by boards. Without flashlights, we used only the very dim light from cell phone screens, and continued to flash each room with the flash of cameras to see where we were walking. We could hear the wind slamming the back of the house, thinking that at any moment, the porch would finally break off and tumble down the cliffside into the lake.