Lange Estate

The Lange Estate is a large family estate located in Titusville, Pennsylvania; owned by the original founder and CEO of Smike Oilfields, Michael Lange. The estate, originally inherited from Lange’s father Frederik, has been largely neglected and turned into a rather grotesque monument to the petroleum industry, with a massive concrete dry dock-like pit dug on the premises of the estate and filled with crude oil. The pit was originally filled via a massive oil pipeline connected to the Smike Titusville Refinery, though the pipeline is now disconnected, and is also connected to a manually operable draining system; it is unclear where the oil would be drained to.

Though the site was declared an environmental hazard by the EPA, Lange successfully lobbied for regulations to be changed to allow him to continue to neglect it. Lange, who resides in a luxury penthouse on the upper levels of Detroit, is largely disconnected from its consequences. The premises were briefly occupied by squatters running an illegal document forgery business, who after accidentally dropping a bag full of documents into the oil pit triggered the manual system and drained the pit.