Set Builders
Hand-aged timbers, hand-mortared stone, hand-painted wallpaper. Every plank earns its scars.
About Us
A society of makers.
We build award-winning escape rooms — but we're really a workshop of storytellers, engineers, artists and conspirators, crafting worlds you solve your way through in an hour.
Adventurers of every age find their way through our doors — families chasing a riddle together, friends gathering for a birthday worth remembering, and teams of colleagues who arrive as coworkers and leave as legends.
Play · Celebrate · Unite
Find the Door
Correspondence & coordinates.
The Doorstep
9200 Stony Point Parkway
Richmond, VA 23235
Inside Stony Point Fashion Park, around the corner from P.F. Chang's and right next to CineBistro. Park outside P.F. Chang's, turn right, and look for the big red storefront before CineBistro.
The Wire
contactus@gnomeandraven.com(800) 769-1415
Email is the fastest route to an answer — we are often mid-incantation and will return voicemails as soon as we can.
When the Doors Open
- MonClosed
- TueClosed
- Wed1pm – 8pm
- Thu1pm – 8pm
- Fri1pm – 8pm
- Sat10am – 8pm
- Sun1pm – 6:30pm
All adventures run by reservation — book online, or call if you need a time sooner than 48 hours out.
The Founding
How it began.
Gnome & Raven is part of the Ravenchase family of adventures, created by Founder and President Josh Czarda. Christmas was approaching, and the mother of Josh's three little brothers — Jimmy, Cliff and Stephen — was in the ICU with an advanced stage of cancer. Josh simply wished to give the boys something to take their minds off the future, even for just a day.
While shopping for gifts, he stumbled across a metal detector and an antique compass. He scouted locations and developed clues that led his brothers across their farm, through Warrenton, Virginia, and up into the Shenandoah mountains — to a real treasure chest buried in a cave near the top of Old Rag Mountain.
The look on Stephen's face when the boys dug it out of the ground — elation, wonder, happiness — was a gift of equal measure. Inspired by that moment, the team has gone on to create one-of-a-kind adventures around the globe, including the fantastical, family-friendly worlds of Gnome & Raven.
What lives in the workshop
The crafts.
Electronics & Mechanisms
Custom circuitry behind antique brass. Magic, of course. Also: very small wires.
Prop & Costume Makers
Lamps that flicker on cue. Tomes that turn their own pages. Hats with opinions.
Story Architects
Plots planted years ahead, payoffs you'll feel before you understand. Lore that rewards return visits.
Puzzle Designers
We build for the seven-year-old and the seventy-year-old in the same hour. Hardest job in the workshop.
Experience Hosts
Half stage manager, half librarian, all conspirator. They know which way the door swings.