Waverly Hills Sanatorium

The Haunted Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Waverly Hills Sanatorium is chronicled on many of the “scariest places” lists by paranormal historians. Many experts place Waverly Hills Sanatorium in the top 3 of the most haunted and scariest places preserved. Situated in the southwestern area of Louisville, Kentucky, the sanatorium is renowned for being the most haunted asylum in the entire world.  Rife with reports of moving objects and cold spots, to malicious appearances of ghostly doppelgängers mimicking the visitors to the sanatorium themselves. The stories are astonishing.

Is The Waverly Hills Sanatorium Haunted?

The location and former building where the sanatorium stands now was originally purchased in 1883 by a military man, Major Thomas Hays.  Due to the remote location at the time, the initial building was fashioned into a large one-room schoolhouse, as the nearest school was several miles away.  A woman named Lizzie Lee served as the first teacher there, and she held a special fondness in her heart for author Walter Scott’s Waverley Novels series. Major Hays needed a name and found Lee’s penchant for the Waverley Novels to be the perfect name, and the Waverly School was formed.  At the turn of the 20th Century, the region was hit very hard with a severe tuberculosis outbreak, and the land the Waverly School was on was purchased.  Subsequently, the building and land were massively expanded, and hospital construction was done so as to house the influx of tuberculosis patients.

Roughly beginning in 1911, for the next three years more and more beds and building extensions were added to create a five-story, four hundred-bed building for those stricken with tuberculosis. A children’s wing for younger patients was also added; however, as the number of cured children improved, feeble adults who had tuberculosis and could not care for themselves in the outside world were sent to live in this wing.  In 1962, cases of tuberculosis patients declined to a point where the Waverly accepted geriatric dementia patients.  For the next twenty years, the Waverly Hills cared for these patients until the state of Kentucky stepped in to close the sanatorium down due to severe neglect in 1982.  And that’s when the horror stories began to emerge.

The Body Chute

One of the most infamous parts of Waverly Hills Sanatorium is the underground tunnel known as the “Body Chute” or “Death Tunnel.” Stretching roughly 500 feet down the hillside, the tunnel was originally designed to provide a route for transporting supplies and housing utility lines between the hospital and buildings below. However, as more patients died from tuberculosis, the tunnel began to serve a new purpose. Reportedly, workers used it to transport the dead away from the main hospital to keep the dead bodies out of sight from the ill. Today, the dark, narrow tunnel has become one of Waverly Hills’ most recognizable attributes and a major part of its haunted reputation, with visitors and paranormal investigators reporting unexplained noises, looming shadowy figures, and an eerie feeling while walking through it.

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Waverly Hills Sanatorium & its dark history… #scary #History

♬ The great hidden sea of the unconscious – The Caretaker

Waverly Hills: The Creeper

The Creeper is hands down the most intimidating spirit in the entire sanatorium. Manifesting itself as a twisted shadow creature, The Creeper has been known to appear in the sanatorium hallways the most.  In the past, when spotted, people have said that it has long, crudely twisted arms and legs, and it seems to be spotted approaching some unlucky visitors in various ways.  Most commonly, it is spotted crawling along the floor, while other times The Creeper is on the ceiling, slowly approaching the unsuspecting.  One of the associations of being in the presence of The Creeper is doom.  Paranormal investigators at Waverly have claimed that when The Creeper has been spotted, they feel an overwhelming sense of dread and, more often than not, they have to leave the property.

Room 502 – The Most Haunted Room at Waverly Hills

Room 502 is the most haunted individual room in the complex.  Pretty young nurse Mary Hillenburg worked at Waverly, and according to stories there, she became pregnant out of wedlock.  Feeling ashamed and hopeless about her situation, it is believed she sought out an abortion, but something about the procedure went horribly wrong. Subsequently, she committed suicide by hanging herself inside the room.  Her death was a gory scene, and even worse, she put her baby down the body chute.

Today, Room 502 has chilling reports of vicious cold spots, and objects indeed flying past visitors.  EVP sessions have picked up the words “get back” inside the room, and the phantom screeching of the chair Mary kicked out from under herself to be hanged is also audibly heard.  The body chute to the Waverly was often used, as patients often succumbed to their illnesses.  Bodies were sent down to a tunnel where they were rounded up and transported via train to unknown destinations.  EVPs collected from this area of the sanatorium are quite chilling in their simplicity, as words like “pain” and “leave now” are picked up.

Emerge from the body chute tunnel, and you’re likely to catch a glimpse of Timmy, a child ghost there.   A young patient who passed away at the age of six, Timmy had a fondness for toy balls.  Over the years, visitors have brought toy balls and left them for Timmy to play with. Often, people have claimed to see one of these toy balls roll furiously back and forth on the floor unassisted, before Timmy’s spirit rolls it at them.

A Weird Proposal

In March of 1996, a man named Robert Alberhasky bought Waverly Hills and the surrounding area. Alberhasky ran the Christ the Redeemer Foundation Inc. and had plotted to build the world’s tallest and biggest Jesus statue on the property. However, due to the project’s major cost ($4 million) and a lack of donors, the project was cancelled. Robert had also planned on building a chapel, theater, and a gift shop. After the project’s cancellation, the land was sold to Tina and Charlie Mattingly in 2001, who still maintain ownership of the property to this day.

Hollywood Comes A Knocking

Waverly is also no stranger to modern American horror pop culture.  In 2005, reputed horror documentarian and filmmaker Phillip Adrian Booth directed a little-known, then-unknown cast to star in a film entitled Death Tunnel.  The plot was a horror cliché of college sorority hazing gone wrong as a half dozen young women have to endure five floors of pure hell as they’re terrorized by the long-tormented spirits there.  Menacing ghosts in the film were inspired in part by actual spirits said to be haunting the Waverly.  Even wilder is the fact that this film, in particular, was filmed at the Waverly Hills itself.  Cast members have been quite reluctant to reveal as to whether or not filming there added to the fear-filled environment they were trying to create, but filming in such a place no doubt added considerably to the scare factor and required all acting parts in the film to be quite method.

Visit The Waverly Hills Sanatorium

The Waverly Hills Sanatorium today is completely open for ghost tours, events, and paranormal investigations of all types.  Visitors are encouraged to take videos or pictures that document any paranormal activity they find on the grounds; however, arrangements to visit must be made via reservation. Some people have been brave enough to attend one of the all-night tours; however, doing so is not for the faint of heart.