Parafest Packs Avon Inn with Ghost Hunters During Inn’s Final Week

AVON – The second annual Winter Parafest by the Genesee Valley Paranormal Investigators (GVPI) packed the Avon Inn with ghost hunters, lecturers and more than 200 curious folks from near and far on Sunday, the start of the Inn’s last week in business, for now.

More than 225 inquisitive people dared to stop by the Inn and meet experts in ufology, tarot, and unexplainable beings and creatures, and wander the Inn’s historic rooms with local paranormal teams, psychics, authors, artists and television personalities, while vendors of metaphysical, holistic, and new age merchandise sold their wares.

Special guests included actress Genoveva Rossi, Chris Dicsare from the SyFy hit ‘The C1D2 Haunting of SUNY Geneseo,’ Captain Jack Fay of the Mutual UFO Network, Micheal Keene, author of a book on hidden insane asylums, Cookie Stringfellow, organizer of the Rochester Paranormal Research Meetup group, Susan Fianch and Connie Wake, co-authors of Everyday Conversations: the Key to the Contemporary Medium, and Mary Grace, spiritual counselor and parapsychologist.

Last year’s Winter Parafest was also held at the Avon Inn, and GVPI has been having their meetings there. Now that the Inn will be closing, GVPI already has its sights on Nashville’s in Henrietta for next year’s Winter Parafest.

There are rumors of ghosts at the Avon Inn itself, and GVPI sends ghost hunters there every Halloween. According to Ted Van Son, founder of GVPI, the Inn was at one time a sanitarium, where people would go to recover from chronic illnesses or operations.

Linda Moran, owner of the Avon Inn, announced the Inn’s closure in October and hopes to turn it over to a new keeper who will keep it running as an inn.

The Inn’s last night open will be Saturday, Jan. 9 for the Avon Community Cares fundraiser in honor of Blair Phillips.

The Inn was built in 1820 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.