Given the spooky season we’re in, I thought it was the perfect time to share an article I wrote for Chicago magazine earlier this year. The March 2019 issues was an ode to Chicago’s suburbs – the people, places, and things that are worth the drive from the city. Naturally, I turned to a unique and unusual spot – a mini golf course hiding in the basement of a funeral home!
Check out an extended version of my interview with the creator of the miniature golf course below. You can read the original article here: The Funeral Parlor with Mini Golf
Play a Round Underground
If you thought you couldn’t have fun at a funeral home, you’re dead wrong. An unlikely links is hiding below the solemn chapels of Ahlgrim Family Funeral Services in Palatine. The building’s basement is home to a community room featuring arcade games, shuffleboard, ping pong, pool tables, and Ahlgrim Acres, a 9-hole miniature golf course.
Naturally, the mini-golf course features a spooky theme. Like a macabre carnival, golfers put past a skeleton with glowing red eyes on one hole while a mummy leans out of his coffin to judge their swing on another. Creepy music echoes through the room and a haunted house pinball machine lights up in the corner.
Since its inception in the mid-1960s, the basement has become an improbable meeting place for local community groups and curious roadtrippers. Visitors may enjoy the free community room when there’s no funeral service taking place upstairs. I spoke with owner Roger Ahlgrim by phone about reframing an “all grim” funeral home into a surprisingly delightful destination to “play a round underground.”
How did you get the inspiration for the miniature golf course?
Roger Ahlgrim: Well, when we built the building in 1964 we ended up with a large basement underneath the funeral home. We had all that room and I loved miniature golf, so the first thing I put in was an 8-hole miniature golf course. Then it just grew every year. I put a shuffleboard court in and ping pong. Video games became popular way back then, so I put some of those in.
We lived right there at the funeral home and I had three kids, two boys and a girl. The neighborhood kids would come in with them. Then, I joined Rotary and one of our staff members joined Kiwanis Club, so those groups started coming in. Just by word of mouth homeowners associations would have parties there. The Palatine Fire Department had their Christmas party there. We never charged, it was all free. We didn’t mean for it to get that well known, but it did.
We still enjoy people coming in and using it. Cub Scouts come down, Girl Scouts, the Brownies, and Indian Guides.
Did the setting influence the room’s haunted theme?
I figured being in a funeral home it had to be a little spooky. We have the haunted house pinball machine—that was one of the first pinball machines I got. On hole #1 I have a skull. It isn’t a real skull. It’s metal, but then I drilled holes in the eyes and added a red light blinking on and off. People have to shoot around that in the sand trap.
Hole #2 is an old shipping box that we used to ship bodies by railroad. I drilled holes in the bottom and put troughs inside, so where players think the ball is going to come out it doesn’t. Then we have a guillotine. Of course, every golf course has a guillotine!
We have a pretty big windmill in our parking lot that’s 1/5th size to scale. My mother was Dutch so that’s in honor of her. I put a windmill down on the miniature golf course too.
We do have a haunted house on the golf course. My daughter built the mausoleum hole. The ball goes in and doesn’t come out where they think it will.
Do you have a favorite hole?
Yeah, the haunted house because you have to shoot it in the front door and it goes up a ramp, but nobody knows the ramp is split at the top. So, if the ball goes to the right it just comes back out. If it goes to the left, it continues down to the green. We have sound in there and skulls looking out the window. That’s probably my favorite because I built it myself.
What do you think it is about the community room that resonates with people after all these years?
Well the fact that it’s free [laughs]. I think it’s just interesting playing in the basement of a funeral home.
What is interesting, we’ve had funerals and they’ll say, “We called you because I was here as a kid playing your miniature golf course as a Cub Scout.” People have asked us, “During the wake, can our friends go downstairs and play?” We don’t allow that because it would be disrespectful. The noise comes up the heating ducts. We close the room off when there’s business.
I know that you recently retired, but what did you most enjoy about the job?
Helping families get through their three days of hardship. They come back a few days later and thank us and say we were a help. That makes it all worthwhile. A lot of times it’s something new to the families and they have no idea what to do. We walk them through everything and explain what the options are. It’s a big help.
It sounds like you’ve built a surprising space in a place that a lot of people may associate with sad times.
I was concerned about that at first, that it wouldn’t be right to have a miniature golf course in the basement of a funeral home. As it turns out, it doesn’t seem to bother people—they like it!
Want to discover other hidden places in Chicago? Check out my book Secret Chicago!
Ahlgrim Family Funeral Services
201 N. Northwest Hwy.
Palatine, IL 60067
