The name comes from the castle of Lord British, ruler of Britannia, the setting of the Ultima computer role playing game series, which he created.
The home was featured in a 2007 episode of the HGTV television series Secret Spaces on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and on MTV Cribs.
A secret room in the basement contained some of Garriott's most treasured artifacts, including dinosaur fossils, a coffin with a human skeleton inside it, and an authentic 16th century vampire hunting kit.
The house also featured other collections such as hairs from the Glacier snowman, a brick from the Great Wall of China, a Russian spacesuit, and three stained glass windows retrieved from an abandoned church.
[citation needed] Garriott spent a great deal of money biannually around Halloween to pay for makeup, tools, construction materials, special effects, and costumes for his haunted house.
Only two men were paid to work on Britannia Manor, Greg Dykes and Keith Ewing, from local construction company Custom Creations.
Participants would go through Garriott's mountain property in adventuring parties, gathering clues to solve mysteries and quests, while facing different perils and pitfalls.
[11] Since 2007, many of those volunteers have, and continue to support SCARE for a CURE, a charity haunted house formerly in the Austin Elk's Lodge, now in Lorane Ghost Town directed by Jarrett Crippen, aka The Defuser.
Capable of seating well over a hundred, Garriott's Curtain theater was modeled after the style also replicated in full-scale by Sam Wanamaker's Globe Theatre replica in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames, in an area known as Bankside.