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In the News: Ho-Ho-Kus Inn Holds Seance
BY EVONNE COUTROS
From NorthJersey.com:
HO-HO-KUS – As patrons wined and dined on merlot and tenderloin at the Ho-Ho-Kus Inn this week, they were oblivious to a séance taking place upstairs in search of restaurant-haunting ghosts for a new television pilot.
"I'm just enlightened by how many people the Inn has affected and how much rich history it has," Hamm said after the séance.
The film crew arrived at the Inn early on Monday with McManus, who was eager to walk through the Hermitage and Zabriskie dining rooms. Electronic voice phenomena, or EVP, recordings were taken in various rooms, but one second-floor area hit McManus like an 18th-century brick.
"This room was so intense with energy every time we were in here," Ho-Ho-Kus resident McManus said of the cozy Hermitage Room. "I knew that doing a séance in here … I knew that I was going to get walloped. I've never felt this kind of energy in one room. I spent the whole day in and out of this floor. I love the energy of this build-ing."
McManus — who graduated from Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest and studied radio and television at William Paterson University — claimed to channel several entities through his body as the cameras rolled. They included a wailing child, a gravel-voiced male chauvinist of the past and an adult with a brogue.
"When you have layers of history, you usually have multiple ghosts tucked in those layers," McManus said. "The longer the building has been here, the more the likelihood of having people here."
Die-hard fans of the ghostly will have to wait for the séance results. The pilot episode by Jarrett Creative Group — which produces the show "Celebrity Ghost Stories" — has not yet been sold.
E-mail: coutros@northjersey.com
