Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Death rates were high enough that the hospital built an underground tunnel — later nicknamed the "body chute" — reportedly to move deceased patients out of sight of the living without disturbing morale on the wards. Streptomycin's success against tuberculosis let the hospital close by 1961, and after a brief second life as a geriatric center that closed in 1982 amid allegations of neglect, the building sat abandoned for years. Ghost hunters now cite room 502, tied to a nurse's reported death by suicide, and the body chute itself as the site's most consistently reported hotspots.

Waverly Hills was built to isolate and treat tuberculosis patients from Louisville and Jefferson County. A Board of Tuberculosis Hospital was set up in 1906, and the first sanatorium, a two-story wooden administration building with two open-air pavilions of 20 patients each, opened on 26 July 1910 on land that had belonged to Major Thomas H. Hays. The Kentucky historic resources inventory filed for the National Register records that bids for the first buildings were advertised in 1909 by the architect J. J. Gaffney, and that the main building, designed by Arthur Loomis with D. X. Murphy and Brother, was dedicated in October 1926. Treatment before antibiotics relied on rest, fresh air and food. American Hauntings describes patients placed in front of huge windows or on open porches whatever the season, and old photographs of patients in chairs "literally covered with snow"; the surgery included the removal of muscles and ribs from the chest, a last resort that many did not survive. After the Second World War a small rise in new cases brought soldiers to Waverly Hills, and Dr. J. Frank Stewart, a former assistant medical director, wrote in his autobiography that many of them arrived too ill to live more than a week. The worst year was 1945, with 152 deaths. Streptomycin was introduced in 1943 but reached Waverly patients only in 1949, after which new cases could be treated as outpatients. The inventory records that control of the sanatorium passed to Louisville and Jefferson County in 1942, and that in 1960 the Commonwealth of Kentucky assumed the care of tuberculosis patients and those at Waverly Hills were transferred to state institutions. The current owners' history and Kentucky Historic Institutions both date the closure to June 1961, and the owners add that the last patients were sent to Hazelwood Sanatorium in Louisville. The building reopened in 1962 as Woodhaven Geriatric Center, which the state closed in 1982 after a grand jury found patient abuse. The tunnel that gave the place its modern reputation ran from the hospital to the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill. According to American Hauntings, bodies were lowered through it so that patients would not see how many were leaving as corpses, because the doctors believed that their mental health was as important as their physical health.

Waverly Hills stands on a hill in south-west Louisville, Kentucky. Its postal address is 4400 Paralee Drive, but the operator's FAQ sends arrivals somewhere else: "Use the GPS address 4301 E. Pages Lane Louisville KY 40272 and drive past the golf course to Gate A", under the instruction "Only use apple maps or the waze app! DO NOT USE GOOGLE MAPS!" The season is short and fixed. The FAQ, consulted on 9 September 2026, gives it as "Our regular season is March 1 – End of August", says tickets for the 2026 season went on sale on 1 January at midnight, and answers the question about refunds with a single word: "No." Four ways in were listed that day. The Historical Tour is "Approximately 2 Hours – Guided, daytime Historical tour of the building". The Paranormal Tour is also about two hours and runs in the dark. The Public Investigation runs about six hours and is described as "semi-guided and geared towards the novice investigator". A private booking for a group of ten runs about eight hours, with the minimum charge for exclusive use of the building set at $1,000 and each extra person at $110 on arrival. The Pump House can be added as an overnight for $500 for ten guests or $250 for five or fewer, with check-out by 2 p.m. and no bedding provided. The FAQ recommends a minimum age of 13 for tours and sets 18 as the minimum for the public investigations; ages 13 to 17 are admitted to the Junior Investigations with a parent or legal guardian. The building is not wheelchair accessible: "Due to the age of the building there are no working elevators." It can be "extremely warm in the summer months", and water is sold inside at a dollar a bottle. Pets are refused inside the building and in vehicles left on the property during tours. Ghost-hunting equipment is barred from the two-hour tours and allowed on the investigations. Flash photography of the exterior is prohibited on arrival after dark. Two events fall outside the season and were on sale on 9 September 2026: a Ghost Town Gathering car show on Saturday 19 September with gates at 9 a.m., and the Waverly Hills Haunted House on Fridays and Saturdays from 25 September to 31 October, gates 7.30 p.m. to midnight. The building was bought in 2001 by Charles and Tina Mattingly, who set up the Waverly Hills Historical Society to fund the restoration; the society's copyright line closes the tour site. The listing is on the National Register under reference 83002746, made in 1983 as "Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatarium Historic Buildings". The Kentucky Historic Resources Inventory form behind it, prepared by Mary Jean Kinsman for the Jefferson County Office of Historic Preservation, gives the address of record as 8101 Dixie Highway and describes "a large four story brick and stone building with a curved plan and a square tower above the entrance" fronted by "a three-bay Gothic-arched entrance porch". The main building was "dedicated in October, 1926", to designs by Arthur Loomis with the firm of D.X. Murphy and Bro., chosen in 1924 to assist in the design and construction. The nominated site is "approximately 16 acres and includes three buildings", and its UTM midpoint on the form is 16/601580/4220780.