In Statesville, a historic church has become the setting for a unique adventure.

At Key to Escape, immersive escape rooms combine storytelling with local history and plenty of clues.

Producer Teresa Litschke has the story.

(upbeat music) - Roger had never been to an escape room.

- I didn't know anything.

It just happened to be my wife and I's first date.

And when she said, "Let's do an escape room."

I said, "Well, what is an escape room?"

- In one hour, under just a little pressure, you learn everything you need to know about somebody.

If they don't like when you solve a puzzle, if that bothers their ego, if you don't win the room and they pout the rest of the night.

- [Teresa] That was not the case with Roger.

- We did not solve the room, but we had such a good time together.

And all we talked about the rest of the night was like how we could have like done something a little different.

And, but we just, we got, it's just a great evening.

- They eventually married.

Then Kim convinced him they had what it took to create their own escape room.

- My background in electrical engineering and her background at psych, she knows brains and those puzzles.

And you put that in a bucket and stir it around and out can come an escape room.

- First, they had to find the right venue and found it on East Sharp Street in downtown Statesville.

- It was a church built in 1898, built by Anna Thornton Washington King.

- It was originally built as a church, but the building was eventually deconsecrated.

More than half a century later, the owner saw it as the perfect home for escape rooms.

- Very nice.

Welcome in, welcome in.

- We only have three.

The building's not so big.

Three experiences, we call it.

- Awesome.

Excellent.

Welcome in.

Welcome to Key to Escape.

- Each experience is different.

Right now we have a twist of Oz.

- And just like Dorothy, guests must find their way home.

- The question I have to you is, how does someone get to Oz?

You gotta take a ride on a tornado.

- I will say our twist of Oz room is pretty spectacular.

(evil laugh) And we get people from around the world.

- Which speaks to the popularity of this room.

- We've had people from Germany, from all over the place that fly to town.

- Another experience is called Under Pressure and relates directly to Anna's husband, Philip Barton Key, and the culture of Statesville in the early part of the 20th century.

(upbeat music) - Statesville was a whiskey town before Kentucky was on the map, before Kentucky was Kentucky.

It was Statesville, North Carolina that was the whiskey capital.

And Philip Barton Key owned Key & Company Distilling.

It's called Under Pressure for a reason 'cause that's the emotion we bring to it.

- There's some things that you really have to not be together.

You know, somebody's over here reading something while you're doing something over here.

- You gotta turn off a still.

You go back to 1925 and turn off a still before it blows up.

The room puts you under increasing pressure until boom.

- Lending to that pressure are people behind the scenes.

- The game hosts are like the conductor of an orchestra.

Nothing happens until they conduct the orchestra.

We're available when people need help.

We're stuck, we don't know what to do.

And then the staff will provide a clue in some unique fashion that also matches the theme of the room.

But other than that, there's not a whole lot of contact that we have.

There's no live actor.

The room itself is the actor.

There may be characters, but there'll be characters that appear.

For instance, you'll see in Oz, they come out of a crystal ball.

(evil laughing) - The third experience, Echoes of Anna, is currently under construction and centers on the woman who commissioned the building.

- The room will be kind of reconciling Anna's past with activities that you do in the present.

- Interacting with stories, real or make believe, is what escape rooms are all about.

- Love escape rooms.

My whole family loves escape rooms.

- It is life-changing fun.

- Thank you.

- Okay.

- I tell people, if you've ever seen a movie, a National Treasure or an Indiana Jones movie, you come and you live it.

People can get intimidated.

We hear it a lot.

"I just don't think I'm smart enough.

I don't wanna do it 'cause I'm not smart enough."

Yeah, you are.

- The first one we ever did, we found out that literally everybody in the room could do something.

They all brought something new.

- Some people might have more propensity to understand a pattern.

Some people get a math reference.

- There are some specific puzzles in this building that if you were a plumber, you got a leg up.

- And all the sights, sounds, and gameplay created by the union of an engineer and a psychiatrist have helped elevate Key to Escape in the escape room world.

- Been to escape rooms all over the place.

This is top tier.

This is better than anything else we've done.

- It's so cool to know that, you know, out of the top 100 of escape rooms in the country, Statesville has one.

And it's like everybody else on the top 100 list is either in a major city or a tourist area, and we get to be here.

(upbeat music) - Key to Escape is located at 150 East Sharpe Street in Statesville.

They're open Thursday and Friday, 11 a.m.

till 11 p.m.

and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m.

to 11.30 p.m.

Reservations are required, so give them a call at 704-253-4559.