The Kerr Memorial Museum in Oakmont has been transformed into a haunted mansion for a Victorian Era Halloween exhibit.

Tours are going on now through Nov. 11 at the historic home at 402 Delaware Ave.

About a dozen rooms were redecorated with papier-mache, costumes, photos and other items designed to spook all who dare to enter.

Commissioned by Dr. Thomas Kerr in 1897, the house is now a museum designed to preserve its late 19th century Queen Anne style. The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Kerr, his wife, Jessie, and their daughter, Virginia, were among the first families of Oakmont.

The Halloween tours are a labor of love for committee members Raney Favo-Zatawski, Gretchen Biondich, Kathie Shoop and Heather Deem.

“We’ve been asking for the last 10 (years) to do it,” Favo-Zatawski said. “Halloween has gotten more and more popular over time. They like the scary. The Victorian traditions, though, were actually more for women finding their future mate than candy or scaring.”

One of the traditions is a “fate cake,” a cake with baked-in tokens such as a ring, thimble, coin, key and button.

Favo-Zatawski said it would be cut at midnight, and the items would help tell the future.

The key meant going on a journey. The coin symbolized wealth. The ring meant you were about to get married. The button meant you would find your love. And the thimble meant you would be a spinster or unmarried woman.

Another game women in that time period would play involved them walking up to a mirror with a candle and reciting a poem. If they saw the image of a man in the mirror, it meant he was to be her true love.

Biondich made most of papier-mache decorations. She also helped re-create some of the traditional costumes using clothing already in the house.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said. “Papier-mache is such a traditional art form, and it was kind of fun to get back to doing it. It was fun to bring some of the photographs to life.”

The dining room is set up as though there were a dinner party with guests wearing masks.

Tours are led by museum docents and take about 45 minutes. They are available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. by reservation only.

Cost is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $6 for students.

The museum also will host special tours on two nights featuring fortune tellers, tarot card readers, a bonfire and characters. The tours start at 6, 7:15 and 8 p.m. Oct. 21 and Oct. 29.

Shoop created a small book with various Halloween stories as a give-a-way at the night tours while supplies last.

The cost for those tours is $25.

To schedule a tour, call 412-826-9295.

More information about the house is available at kerrmuseum.com.

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