Ahlgrim Acres | The Scene

Photo: Andrew Nawrocki

Tuesday, March 27, 12:37pm At Ahlgrim Acres, death is par for the course. Play nine holes of miniature golf in the basement of Ahlgrim Family Funeral Services (201 N Northwest Hwy, Palatine, 847-358-7411) and you’ll encounter some quirky rules. Hole No. 7, for instance, imposes a one-stroke penalty for entering the cemetery and two strokes for disturbing a grave. During nonservice hours, the funeral home’s “community room” opens to Scout troops, Sunday school classes and the generally curious. Owner Roger Ahlgrim, 75, built the course—coffins, a mini haunted house, a model of a “cryptorium”—by hand in the mid-’60s. Word spread after his kids held birthday parties in the playroom. “Not only is it a good time, but it gets young people into the building before they have to come back for a deceased. When the kids do come back, they’re not as scared,” says Roger’s son, Douglas, 44, who books appointments for the community room, which also houses classic arcade games, shuffleboard and billiards. “Church groups love it. They’ll give talks about death and dying upstairs, then the kids walk through this other door and they’re like, ‘Whoa, you’re kidding!’ ”