Welcome Foolish Mortals

Our earlier travels in Liberty Square were cut short before making it back to Gracey Manor, saving this spooky corner of the Magic Kingdom for the week of All Hallow's Eve. The Dutch Gothic edifice on the hill is home to none other than the Haunted Mansion.

For the most complete look at the Haunted Mansion, be sure to pick up Jason Surrell's book The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies. For us this week, however, let's focus on some of the details less covered.

The first structure Guests pass on their way up to the Mansion is a clapboard carriage house. Added in the early part of this decade as a Fastpass distribution location (since removed), the carriage house lives on as part of the extended queue for the attraction... and as a part of the Mansion's story.

The weather vane atop the carriage house is in the shape of a horse, and bridles and stirrups are hung just inside the building. There's also a supply of horseshoes here. Of course, any superstitious soul worth his salt would tell you that horseshoes must always be hung with the opening facing up, lest all the luck run out of them. Here at the Haunted Mansion's carriage house, all horseshoes point down.

From the carriage house, a driveway leads through the gates and past a crumbling fountain to the main building. Look down, and you'll notice horse and carriage tracks forged through the "soil."

Ahead is the dark hearse that has apparently made those tracks, pulled up to the Mansion to deliver another resident. Interestingly, the carriage can be seen but the horse can not. The hearse's equine companion exists merely as a ghostly presence and a harbinger of the experience awaiting visitors inside the home.