Hidden Cave Accessed Through Pennsylvania Home

You can only access the cave through the basement of the home

Home that gives access to a cavePhoto byBrian Marble/Facebook

Pennsylvania is home to some very interesting sites. One of those sites is the Black Coffey Cavern, a cave that can only be accessed through a residential home. The home sits between Greencastle and Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.

Turns out the cave was discovered in the 1830s on the land of John Coffey, according to Uncovering PA, but the story of how it was found is unclear. People would climb down into the cave to explore occasionally until the land was leased about 100 years later and a small structure was built over the cave opening.

The idea was to make it accessible to visitors and use the cave as a tourist attraction, and the small structure was eventually built into a two-story house. But it was closed to the public in 1954 after the land was purchased for limestone mining and it remained closed for nearly 70 years.

Sometime during that 70-year closure, the home that contains the cave was purchased by Dara Black, and in 2021, it reopened to the public.

Basement entrance to cavePhoto byBrian Marble/Facebook

Currently, the home is occupied by Black, but to gain access to the cave you can simply book a tour. The best part about booking a tour is that you only have to make a donation to enter. It's a pay-what-you-can sort of setup, but since someone actually lives in the home, you can't just pop in and ask for a tour. You have to go during the "open house" times available.

Cave entrancePhoto byBrian Marble/Facebook

According to the Black-Coffey Caverns Facebook page, they treat the tours truly as an open house, complete with snacks and drinks. There's a waiting room area where people can chat and eat their snacks while they wait for the tour to start.

They also offer cave yoga once a month. According to Uncovering PA, the tour takes about 45 minutes to complete and there are about 3,000 feet worth of passageways.

From the Facebook page, it appears that the cave doesn't have any lights, but there were pictures with some Christmas lights mounted to the cave walls. Otherwise, you have to use flashlights.

If you want to see what a cave tour looks like starting from the outside of the house, check out the video below: