The Ross House

OVERVIEW

A two-storey frame house at 2011 Belmont Street in Bellaire, Belmont County, on the Ohio bank of the river opposite Wheeling, below the B&O's stone viaduct and the town's old toll bridge. Built in 1895, it was bought in 1948 by Fred and Marie Gretros, who lived in it until his death in 1975 and hers in the late 1980s; Marie was remembered as private and reclusive. It later passed to Charles Ross, and in 2016 his daughter Cindy Kuhn turned it into an escape-room business and then a paranormal investigation centre, which it remains.

HISTORY

The house's documented history is a Bellaire family home through the coal, glass and steel years of the town. The operators connect the spirits they report — a tall shadow figure they call Alfred, a protective woman, a child, and three miners they name Ed, Sam and Johnny — to the Webb Mine fire of 23 December 1925, a real disaster in the Bellaire coalfield; the connection is theirs, not the record's. No haunting was reported before the venue opened.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Investigators booking the house report cold spots, footsteps, drained batteries, knocks and voices in the basement and the 'Red Room', objects moved, a door opening, and women touched or having their hair stroked. The Grave Talks podcast interviewed Kuhn; teams and streamers post their sessions. vetted = false — a sincere and active venue whose tradition begins with itself in 2016.

VISITING

Bookings through therosshouse.org: overnight investigations about $200–300 a night for up to five, group tours from $35 a person; 740-232-4544. A private house on a residential street.