SPOOK HILL
The Florida Road Where Cars Roll Uphill
Florida has no shortage of unusual places.
We have springs where mermaids have performed underwater for generations, castles built by hand, towns known for mediums and spiritualists, and enough strange roadside attractions to fill a very long road trip.
But in Lake Wales, one of Florida's strangest attractions is simply a road.
It's called Spook Hill.
And according to generations of visitors, if you stop your car in the right place, put it in neutral and take your foot off the brake, something very strange happens.
Your car appears to roll uphill.
A Florida Gravity Hill
Spook Hill is what is commonly called a gravity hill or mystery hill—a location where the surrounding landscape creates an optical illusion that makes a downhill slope appear to be uphill.
Your eyes tell your brain that the road is rising.
Gravity apparently has other plans.
Because the surrounding terrain and horizon can make it difficult to judge the actual grade of the road, a vehicle rolling naturally downhill can look as though it is somehow being pulled uphill.
Of course, explaining the science takes some of the fun out of it.
And Florida supplied a legend for that.
Where Did the “Spook” Come From?
The story surrounding Spook Hill has been told in different forms over the years, and—as happens with many old legends—the details can change depending upon who's telling them.
One version connects the hill to a battle involving a Native American chief and a giant alligator. Another version attributes the strange pull to the spirits of Native Americans who once lived in the area.
The stories became part of the identity of the hill.
Science may explain why your car appears to move the wrong direction, but folklore explains why generations of Floridians have continued driving out there to try it for themselves.
And that's what makes places like Spook Hill interesting.
Sometimes What You See Isn't What You're Looking At
There's actually a small real-estate lesson hiding inside this wonderfully strange Florida attraction.
What we see isn't always the complete picture.
A room can look smaller because it's empty.
A house can look darker because of the time of day you happen to visit.
A neighborhood can feel completely different on Tuesday afternoon than it does Saturday morning.
A property that looks perfect in photographs can feel completely wrong when you walk through the door—and one that doesn't photograph particularly well can surprise you the moment you step inside.
Even land can fool the eye. Distance, elevation, boundaries and perspective aren't always as obvious as they seem when you're standing there looking at them.
That's why photographs, listings and first impressions are useful—but they aren't substitutes for actually understanding the property.
Sometimes you need to look twice.
Every Place Has a Story
That's one of the things I enjoy most about real estate.
We're not simply surrounded by houses and parcels of land. We're surrounded by places with histories, peculiarities, stories and sometimes legends.
Spook Hill doesn't need a towering monument or elaborate attraction.
It's a road.
Yet people have been stopping there for generations just to put their cars in neutral and see what happens.
Maybe you'll leave convinced that it's nothing more than a clever optical illusion.
Maybe you'll prefer the legend.
Either way, the next time you're in Lake Wales, you might want to stop at Spook Hill and see for yourself.
Just remember:
In Florida, even the road beneath your tires may not be quite what it seems.
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