Waverly Hills Sanatorium
I’ve been in Louisville for the last few days visiting family for Thanksgiving. One of the main things I’d hoped to accomplish on this trip was to catch a glimpse of the infamous Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Well, I did it.
The gothic-style behemoth was built in the twenties and functioned as a tuberculosis hospital until 1961, but remained in use as a facility for the elderly until the early eighties (when it was apparently shut down due to patient abuse). There are conflicting death totals for the hospital – ranging widely from approximately 8,000 to a whopping 63,000. No matter how you slice it, a lot of people died there.
If the name Waverly Hills isn’t ringing a bell from you, you may remember it if I mention the “body chute”/”death tunnel.” The sanatorium is situated atop a hill, and there is a tunnel on the property that leads to the bottom of the hill. Its original use was as a means of delivering building supplies to the hilltop, but later took on a more eerie purpose.
Fresh air was believed to help the TB patients, so they were often wheeled onto the vast solarium porches that span the structure’s face. Eventually, due to the facility’s high death rate, the staff began to use the tunnel as a means of transporting the bodies of the dead out of the hospital in order to prevent patients – especially those on the solarium – from witnessing the discouraging sight.
Half of the inclined tunnel’s floor is a ramp, while the other half is made of stairs. The ramp was used to wheel the bodies to the bottom of the hill, apparently with the assistance of some mechanized system. So while bodies weren’t tossed down a chute as the moniker “body chute” might suggest, it was indeed used as a means of transport for many, many corpses.
Naturally, the building is said to be haunted, and has been featured in documentaries, horror movies and various paranormal shows – including my favorite, Ghost Hunters. Whether or not you buy into that sort of thing (I do), you can’t deny the creepiness of this edifice.
Tours are given of Waverly Hills Sanatorium, but the place is so wildly popular that it’s difficult to book one on shorter notice. As my Thanksgiving trip to Louisville was planned close to the last minute, a tour wasn’t in the cards. In fact, they’re all booked up for the remainder of the season (due to the nature of the building – particularly its location on top of a hill and being without many of its windows – it closes down for part of the year because it’s just too cold).
I wanted desperately to head over there – about 20 miles from my aunt’s house – in spite a lot of conflicting and pretty much hopeless information I’d gotten about how I wouldn’t even be able to see the building. Luckily, my sources were wrong.
It just so happens that there’s a subdivision being built at the base of the hill beneath the front side of the building. Because of the clear land of the subdivision (including the empty Lot 37 front and center to Waverly Hills) and our good fortune of visiting Louisville at the time of year when the trees go naked, we had an amazing view. The building was almost every bit as imposing as the pictures I’d seen. I say “almost” because the pictures are often taken with a wide angle lens, which adds to the spookiness (as if it needed help). That fucker was still pretty scary – and you’ll get that just from what I was able to do with my lowly point-and-shoot.
Beyond the natural fear that Waverly Hills inspires, Mom and I had a bit of a jolt. While standing in our Lot 37 viewpoint of the building’s façade, there was a bang from within the hospital. Mom and I looked at each other and back at the building. It definitely came from the interior of the structure because it echoed within it.
To be perfectly honest, there wasn’t an ounce of fear in my body (which surprises me), but only because I just assumed right off the bat that it was a noise made by the security staff. Mom and I gave each other the funny look, of course, because we’d just randomly heard a noise from the big bad haunted hospital. But we’re realistic, too.
Later, I mentioned it to a friend familiar with the building and area who told me that the security staff doesn’t patrol within the building. Hmmm…
Anyway, directly below are a few links you may want to see if Waverly Hills interests you, and after that, you can click the thumbnails to be redirected to the full set of photos I took this afternoon on the adventure.
- Waverly Hills Sanatorium (official)
- Wikipedia: Waverly Hills Sanatorium
- Ghost Hunters – Waverly Hills
- Ghost Hunters – Live Halloween Show from Waverly Hills
- Official Waverly Hills Sanatorium/ Woodhaven Geriatric Center Memorial & Historical Resource
- Death Tunnel (a pretty goofy fictional movie set at WHS)
click to view entire set
Awesome. If you ever do want to go again on a refular tour I’m totally up for going with.
Jon
November 30, 2008 at 9:02 pm
err, “regular”. Bad me, typing before coffee.
Jon
November 30, 2008 at 9:03 pm
When you’re up on the fifth floor, by the most haunted room in the place, you get a great view of the city at night (on a clear night).
Ron
November 30, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Jon, I’m definitely going back for a tour. Don’t know yet if I should do a half night or a full night (not sure that my nerves could handle it).
Ron, Room 502? They’re very unclear on the details of that nurse story.
janeqpublic
December 1, 2008 at 12:00 am
That would be Room 502. The story I’ve heard most often is that it was the nurse’s lounge/dressing area, and a pregnant unmarried nurse hanged herself. Now it may not have ever happened, but that room is still creepy.
What I do know is when I went on my tour, that was the only room in the place that was warm. Actually, it was hot and everywhere else was either cold or bitterly cold.
Ron
December 1, 2008 at 12:08 am
I’ve heard that story, too, but they have no confirmation on it.
Were the windows to the outside broken out in that room?
janeqpublic
December 1, 2008 at 12:11 am
Oooooh! Delightfully scawy! I definitely wanna see this.
scoutabout
December 1, 2008 at 11:54 am
Scoutabout – I plan on giving everyone a bit of advanced notice when I plan to book a tour because a lot of people seem to be interested in checking it out.
jane q. public
December 2, 2008 at 12:06 am
Whoa. This is awesome! I want to go too!
newscoma
December 2, 2008 at 12:15 am
Newscoma – I thought you might like that! Mom wanted to go up there (and now she wants to write a book about the place!). The barricades would’ve been easily stepped over/around, but they have constant security as well as cameras. I’m too poor to pay the fine.
jane q. public
December 2, 2008 at 12:19 am
The windows, when I was there, had been broken out of basically every floor except the part of the first where they do the fake haunted house. There were literally no windows in the whole place save one wing.
Ron
December 2, 2008 at 5:22 am
I obviously wasn’t close enough to see well, but it looked like the windows I saw might be new. Still, if you look at some of the pictures I took, there must be some that are still open. When you look at the solarium porches, you can see through to windows on the other side, and it kind of looks like there are no windows between.
janeqpublic
December 2, 2008 at 6:35 am
[...] Jane Q. Public – Waverly Sanatorium [...]
Blogging The Tennessee Bloggers – Newscoma
December 3, 2008 at 12:20 am
If you look on my blog on the sidebar there is a category calling “exploring” it’s my favorite photography sites for abandoned and dilapidated buildings. I’m obsessed with this genre of photography and urban exploration in general. It does not surprise me that you seem to share this morbid fascination with these buildings. You always were sort of my doppleganger.
Miss Havisham
December 3, 2008 at 6:23 am
You’re not kidding – Besides some similar interests, I’ve always thought looked a lot alike.
I’m not sure if I’m brave enough for much trespassing (though I’ve been in the abandoned funeral home at Mt. Olivet several times), but I at least love the idea of urban exploration.
At first mom wanted to walk up there and check it out (she wasn’t really familiar with how popular the place is and, consequently, how much they mean business about trespassing), but after she saw enough signs from the Louisville PD, she changed her mind. They’ve got a guard on duty as well as cameras inside and outside the building.
janeqpublic
December 3, 2008 at 7:01 am
Those windows all look new. I’m kind of disappointed that they’re closing the place in and making it more tourist-friendly, but if I had a money printing machine like that, I’d do the same thing.
Ron
December 3, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Great, now I’m ‘that guy’ who says that everything was cooler back when it was unknown.
Ron
December 3, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Ron – I read last night that they did indeed put in a bunch of new windows.
And you’re totally “that guy.”
janeqpublic
December 5, 2008 at 7:28 am
[...] I had to make a stop at Waverly Hills again. I didn’t hear any creepy noises this time (though I never would have over the icy, [...]
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