Akeley Farm, Vermont

A working farm turned listening post, its owner Henry Akeley having wired the house to record the buzzing voices he hears coming from the hills at night. What waits in those hills, and in the sealed cylinder-chair in Akeley's own study, makes the farm considerably harder to leave than to reach.

Whereabouts: An isolated farmhouse in the wooded hills of Windham County, Vermont, well beyond where regular road maintenance reaches in winter.

Access: By car along back roads, and on foot after that; Wilmarth's own visit is made at his host's specific — and, as it turns out, heavily stage-managed — invitation.