Originally constructed in 1905 as West Palm Beach’s first funeral home, the Edwardian-style Riddle House carries a long legacy of institutional grief and intense, localized poltergeist phenomena. Built on North Dixie Highway, the building served as a combined mortuary and residence for decades before it was purchased in 1920 by Karl Riddle, West Palm Beach’s first city manager. The core of the house’s paranormal history belongs to a single, recurring tragic event: a cemetery gatekeeper and employee named Joseph, who, overwhelmed by financial hardships during his employment under Riddle, committed suicide by hanging himself from the exposed rafter beams in the building’s attic space.

The aggressive nature of the haunting manifested primarily when the structure faced demolition in 1995. To save the building, the city disassembled the house piece by piece and relocated it to Yesteryear Village, a historical preservation park at the South Florida Fairgrounds. During this relocation phase, structural workers and carpenters documented severe physical pushback from the house; tools were systematically thrown from the attic window, scaffolding mysteriously collapsed without structural failure, and a security guard resigned after witnessing a solid, tattered phantom pacing the skeletal frame of the building at midnight. Modern field researchers operating infrared cameras and digital voice recorders in the attic consistently document a hostile male presence that actively manipulates physical objects. Visitors tracking the home report sudden, heavy choking sensations upon stepping onto the upper landing, unexplainable footsteps pacing the floorboards directly beneath the hanging beams, and rapid power drops on high-intensity investigative gear.