Wildwood's Haunted Farmhouse: 2022 Review
Wildwood’s Haunted Farmhouse, Santa Clarita, CA
After a slight break, we resume catching up on our Halloween weekend haunting adventures by heading up to our perennial favorite home haunt region, the Santa Clarita Valley! Over the years, we have visited a variety of memorable, famed, and beloved haunts in this holiday-rich area, including Beware the Dark Realm, The Farm Haunt, Club Fear, Coffinwood Cemetery, Shiver Haunt, and many more. This is an area that has a wonderful abundance of Halloween (and Christmas) spirit, with plenty of houses decorating for the holidays and producing some fantastic displays to enjoy.
As time has passed, most of these haunts have passed on to the realm of phantasms, with Beware the Dark Realm and The Farm Haunt going pro and becoming part of the Bones’ Gulch conglomerate (along with Restless Souls Manor), Club Fear’s owner moving south to the San Diego Area, and Shiver Haunt scaling back and opting to be more of a participant in other friends’ haunts. But like a downed tree in the forest, when one haunt goes dark, another springs up in this place, and today, we cover one of the newer attractions in the SCV!
Chad, the creator of Wildwood’s Haunted Farmhouse, stands in front of his fine work.
A SoCal Haunt List find, Wildwood's Haunted Farmhouse proved to be one of the loveliest home haunted houses of the season. Located literally off the beaten track in the community of Newhall, the oldest part of Santa Clarita, this quiet, family-friendly hunt is the creation of Chad and Savannah, a young couple with no social media presence but a love of creating wonderful Halloween experiences for the neighborhood. They've been crafting a home haunt the past few years but only started listing it on the The SoCal Haunt list this season.
The ambiance immediately entering the haunt is just wonderful.
Nestled on a bumpy, rustic road, this haunt takes guests into a charming farmhouse full of rich detail and whimsical, slightly spooky skeleton scenes. Guests arrive by walking under an archway sign announcing the Wildwood Farm location and up the driveway toward the entrance of the maze—although it’s not initially evident that this residence actually has a haunted house built into it. A lovely pumpkin patch is laid out on the right, with a lone scarecrow keeping mirthful guard over the field. Moody purple and orange Halloween lights provide illumination along the perimeter fencing, while a purple wash bathes the actual driveway approach to the maze facade.
A skeleton peeks in, one of several suggestive scares that aren’t really scary at all.
Taking in the surroundings, an immediate observation is how well the farmhouse facade of the walkthrough maze integrates with the actual residence, looking like an actual part of the house instead of just a facade built in front of the garage. An aged farmhouse porch presents a charming and nostalgic offering of Halloween, with some hay bales, glowing jack-o-lanterns, and a ghostly rocking chair that seems to sway itself. An elegant wood door provides an inviting presence, and a warm porch light completes a scene that might be something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, if the ambiance didn’t look so eerie!
Inside, guests find an enchanting, cobweb-covered study, with dimly-lit candles, old books, and a few skulls and ghoulish decor. A rose-covered wallpaper and mahogany wainscot help reinforce the aged interiors of a bygone era, and the cool, bluish-purple light shining through the front window really enhances a sumptuously supernatural feel to the space. Further on, a skeleton peeks in through a window, and more candles, portraits, and mason jars visually narrate the story of a simple agrarian life. These peaceful, cozy scenes portray a hint of the macabre, but in a family-friendly and gently ominous way.
The layout winds its way through the garage, past a similarly graceful skeleton dinner scene, and around the backyard, passing by some spooky succulents and a line of bats with dimly lit bats observing the scene. A venture into a tool shack with various serrated instruments suggests some sort of sinister activity, but there are no scares or startles to take the experience further. In fact, the entire haunt (when we visited) was scareactor and animatronic free. Instead, it was more like a walkthrough display—but a very pleasant one! Any scares or startles were more suggestive, leaving one to fill in the blanks with the imagination.
Another skeleton seems to be enjoying mealtime.
The quiet beauty of Wildwood’s Haunted Farmhouse contrasts with the in-your-face scares of most other home haunted houses, but we loved how elegant and gorgeous everything was set up here. It’s just another example of how splendid Halloween treasures can spring up just about anywhere. Wildwood’s Haunted Farmhouse is a lovely creation by Chad and Savannah, and we look forward to seeing how it grows and evolves!
The shed in the back is the darkest this haunt gets, and even then, there is nothing overt or graphic.
Wildwood’s Haunted Farmhouse is located at 24143 Cross St, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 and ran the last weekend of October, from approximately 7-10pm. They do not have a social media presence (nor do they plan on getting on, from what Chad told us). Parking in the area is limited, and the street is not paved, so keep that in mind in case of a visit next year.
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
