Back from the dead? A haunted house helps revive a long-abandoned nightclub in West Chicago

Editor's Note: Miles McCabe is a graduate of St. Charles East High School.

A haunted house helps bring a dormant building in West Chicago back to life.

5 Points Haunted House is a commercial offshoot of the Lehman Manor Halloween attraction, which has been run for eight years by young entrepreneur Miles McCabe and his family out of their West Chicago home. It will open Oct. 4 in the former location of Club 38 and Synergy nightclub, at 241 W. Roosevelt Road.

It's part of a 45,000-square-foot Bowling Green complex that has been vacant since April 2018.

“It’s an amazing opportunity, and I’m so excited to see it happen. This is the career I want to be in, so to see it all happen is definitely a dream come true,” said McCabe, 18, a 2024 graduate of St. Charles East High School.

Aiming to offer special events throughout the year but now focusing on Halloween scares, McCabe and his family — his parents Rachel and Jesse and his sister Mia — used money from a $50,000 prize after being named “America’s Scariest House” on ABC’s “The Great Halloween Horror Battle” in 2023 to rent out about a third of the complex.

The entire property was purchased by LC Properties in April with the roughly 30,000-square-foot bowling center being redeveloped into an entertainment center, according to West Chicago Economic Development Coordinator Kelly Kress.

“This is a fantastic property that has been underutilised for many years, so we are very excited. It is something that will not only attract our residents, but people from all over the area,” Chris said.

An investor in the property declined to discuss details of the entertainment center, except to say that plans are under development and it is expected to open in about a year.

Miles McCabe said Lyman Manor, which houses the McCabe home and yard on the border of West Chicago and St. Charles, has been drawing seasonal crowds of about 5,000 people.

From humble beginnings — a 5-foot-tall animated witch that McCabe received when he was 9, with only the head left — he has grown a collection of about 180 animated figures.

He said the 5 Points Haunted House will have at least 50 of them, many of them “huge, air-powered and crazier.”

McCabe hopes to attract 10,000 paying customers to 5 Points Haunted House from Thursday through Sunday, Oct. 4-27, as well as the entire week of Halloween, through the first few days of November.

The calendar and tickets are available with a variety of pricing options (including RIP, for the “really important people”) at 5pointshaunt.com.

“This is definitely very new for us. We've been shooting a haunted house for eight or 10 years now. This is definitely a big step forward. It's two stories and it's much bigger than anything we've ever done, and every scene is bigger than anything we've ever done,” McCabe said.

The haunted house will have 10 spaces upstairs and four to five downstairs, with a small section outside, he said. The McCabe family has been working on it for the past few weeks after getting a permit from the city.

Improvements include workers bringing the space into compliance with fire safety standards and installing fire detectors that were previously absent.

McCabe, who is also a social media influencer with nearly 80,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel called Brick Thunder, plans to use the space as a year-round project.

He said the events would be held during major holidays such as Christmas, and he hoped to open every Friday the 13th and for other separate occasions.

“It will be in operation most of the year,” he said.

“We're excited to show people what we've done with all of this, because even though there's a lot of ground to fill, I think we've filled it pretty well, so it'll be great to see the feedback,” McCabe said.