Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Much of the land for the sanatorium was acquired in 1908 from Major Thomas H. Hays, whose country estate, Waverly Hill, gave the institution its name ^{1, 4, 5}. Kentucky Historic Institutions states that Hays bought the land in 1883 as his family home, and that the name came from a one-room schoolhouse the teacher Lizzie Lee Harris named for Walter Scott's Waverley novels ⁴. The complex stands on a wooded hilltop in southwestern Jefferson County ¹.

The Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium was established in 1906 with the appointment of a board of directors ^{1, 4}. A tax levied by the City of Louisville and Jefferson County paid for the first sanatorium buildings, put up about 1909 to 1911 ¹. The Louisville architect J. J. Gaffney signed a notice in the American Architect on July 21, 1909, soliciting construction bids for buildings at Waverly Hill ¹.

Waverly Hills opened in 1910 as a public institution for the treatment of tuberculosis ². Kentucky Historic Institutions gives the opening date as July 26, 1910, after a 1908 groundbreaking, and describes a two-story wooden administration building with two connected open-air pavilions, built at a cost of $25,000 ⁴. By 1912 Kentucky had three tuberculosis sanatoria: Hazelwood, Waverly Hills, and Jackson Hill ⁷.

The First Biennial Report of the Kentucky Tuberculosis Commission recorded Waverly Hills as a 40-bed facility serving the residents of Jefferson County ⁷. It took both incipient and advanced cases and charged three to five dollars per week, waiving the fee for patients who could not pay ⁷.

The Louisville architect Arthur Loomis was chosen in 1922 for the new buildings, and in 1924 the firm of D. X. Murphy and Bro. was selected to assist with design and construction ^{1, 2}. Kentucky Historic Institutions states that construction on the new brick and concrete sanatorium began in March 1924 and that the building, with a capacity of 400, opened on October 17, 1926 ⁴. The Filson Historical Society gives the dedication of the 400-bed Tudor Gothic Revival main building as October 20, 1926 ². A published architectural history of the complex dates the dedication of the four-story main building to October 1926 and notes that a 2 1/2-story brick building was evidently completed about 1928 ¹.

The main structure is a large four-story brick and stone building with a curved plan, a square tower above the entrance, and a three-bay Gothic-arched entrance porch ¹. The complex contains three major buildings, among them a two-story half-timbered frame structure and a Y-shaped 2 1/2-story Tudor Gothic brick building ¹. The owners describe Waverly Hills as a former tuberculosis sanatorium and an example of Tudor Gothic architecture listed on the National Register of Historic Places ⁸.

The property is listed as "Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanitarium Historic Buildings," National Register Information System ID 83002746 ⁹. The record names J. J. Gaffney and D. X. Murphy as the architects, cites areas of significance in health/medicine, architecture, and social history, and gives the location as Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, at 8101 Dixie Highway ^{9, 1}. The Filson Historical Society states that the 1926 building was added to the Register in 1983 ^{2, 9}.

The Clio entry describes two beds to a room, screened windows, and breezeways where patients were wheeled out for fresh air, with rooms on the far side of the building called "terminal rooms" for those not expected to recover ⁵. Clio states the sanatorium could hold more than 400 patients at once and was regarded as one of the most modern of its time, while Louisville Public Media describes it as a 500-patient, four-story brick facility off Dixie Highway ^{5, 3}. Clio also states that the building housed thousands of tuberculosis patients, most of them children, from as early as the 1910s, and that surgeons sometimes removed as many as eight bones to give the lungs room ⁵. Clio puts the total served at more than 60,000 patients, a figure no other source used here corroborates ⁵.

Waverly Hills was one of only two sanatoria in Kentucky open to African American patients, listed in 1944 as a 575-bed institution containing an annex to segregate patients ⁷. Louisville Public Media reports that the sanatorium for Black patients was a 28-room wooden building, much smaller than the hospital for white patients, and that the two shared a boiler system ³. Tom Ewing, a history professor at Virginia Tech, told LPM that Kentucky, Virginia, and states across the South required the segregation of sanatorium patients by law ³.

LPM interviewed Lillie Gilliam, who entered the segregated ward at age 14 in the late 1940s and spent two years there, taught by a single teacher covering three grade levels ³. Gilliam told LPM that surgery was performed only in the main building "up on the hill," where two-thirds of her right lung was removed ³.

The owner, Charlie Mattingly, told LPM that the building for Black patients burned down in the early 1960s ³. He said he has located its likely footprint from buried drainage and utility lines, and hopes to place a historical marker there ³.

Control of Waverly Hills Sanatorium passed to Louisville and Jefferson County in 1942, when the Kentucky General Assembly created city-county boards of health in counties containing a first-class city ¹. Kentucky Historic Institutions states that streptomycin was discovered in 1943 but did not reach patients at Waverly Hills until 1949 ⁴. Waverly Hills sent its patients to the state-supported Hazelwood Sanatorium, which expanded its capacity to take them ⁷.

In 1960 the Commonwealth of Kentucky took over the care of tuberculosis patients, and those at Waverly Hills moved to state institutions ¹. The Kentucky Tuberculosis Sanatoria Commission's annual report for 1960 to 1961 described the closing of Waverly Hills as recent ⁷. Sources give different closing dates: Louisville Public Media says 1961, Kentucky Historic Institutions gives June 1961, and the Clio entry says 1960 ^{3, 4, 5}.

The Kentucky Geriatrics Foundation, a private non-profit, leased the buildings in 1962 to house a center caring for elderly residents ¹. Kentucky Historic Institutions states that the building reopened in 1962 as the Woodhaven Geriatric Center and that the state closed it in 1982 after a grand jury inspection found patient abuse and degraded facilities ⁴. The Clio entry states that after closure the building became home to transients and vandals over the following decades ⁵.

Most of the land was auctioned off in 1983, and the developer J. Clifford Todd bought the main building, several outbuildings, and 40 acres, proposing a minimum-security prison that was dropped after public protest ⁴. Robert Alberhasky bought Waverly Hills in March 1996 intending to build the world's tallest statue of Jesus on the roof, and the project was canceled in December 1997 after only $3,000 was raised ⁴. Charlie and Tina Mattingly bought the property in 2001 and founded the Waverly Hills Historical Society to fund restoration ^{4, 5}. As of March 2026, LPM reported that Charlie Mattingly had owned Waverly Hills for 25 years ³.

Kentucky Historic Institutions publishes an index of patient deaths at Waverly Hills beginning in 1911, and states that it holds no patient records ⁴. The Filson Historical Society scheduled a program on October 8, 2026, presenting a 3D virtual reconstruction of Waverly Hills built from original blueprints and historical photographs by the architectural associate Andrew Mateja ².

Louisville Public Media describes the main Waverly Hills building as "today rumored to be haunted" ³. The owners' official site advertises a Paranormal Tour of all five floors covering "all the sounds, shadow people" and a look down the "body chute," and says thousands of people visit each year in search of history, architecture, and the paranormal ⁸.

Kentucky Historic Institutions states that the Mattinglys fund restoration through tours, an annual haunted house on the first floor of the main building, and private events in the restored laundry room ⁴.

Visitors commonly describe dark figures moving across doorways on the upper floors, footsteps and voices in corridors where no one else is walking, and doors that move on their own. Room 502, the fourth-floor solarium porches, and the tunnel used to move bodies down the hill come up most often in these accounts. Some guests on the longer investigations report a ball rolling back to them in the hallways, and others report nothing unusual at all.

A reservation is required to visit, and the owners sell tickets for each coming season beginning January 1 at midnight ⁶. The 2026 tour season runs March 1 through August 31, described elsewhere on the owners' site as March 1 to the end of August ^{8, 6}. Offerings include a guided daytime Historical Tour of about two hours, a two-hour Paranormal Tour, a semi-guided Public Investigation of about six hours, and an eight-hour private investigation ⁸. A private investigation carries a $1,000 minimum charge covering up to 10 guests, with additional guests $110 each paid on arrival ^{8, 6}.

The owners recommend a minimum age of 13 for tours and set a minimum age of 18 for public investigations, with Junior Investigations for ages 13 to 17 accompanied by a parent or legal guardian ⁶. Ghost hunting equipment isn't allowed on the two-hour tours, but visitors may bring it on public and private investigations ⁶. Overnight stays in the Pump House cost $250 for up to five guests, $500 for up to 10, and $50 per additional person, with bunk beds for 16, showers, and a 2:00 p.m. checkout; guests bring their own linens and towels ⁶.

The Waverly Hills Haunted House runs Fridays and Saturdays from September 25 through October 31, with gates open 7:30 p.m. to midnight ⁸. The official site also lists a Ghost Town Gathering Car Show on Saturday September 19, with gates opening at 9 a.m. ⁸. Off-season tours and investigations are offered only occasionally and depend on weather, and after November the owners take private bookings requiring at least 25 people for a tour or 10 guests for an investigation, without combining separate groups ¹⁰.

The owners direct visitors to use Apple Maps or Waze with the GPS address 4301 E. Pages Lane, Louisville, KY 40272, driving past the golf course clubhouse to Gate A, and warn against using Google Maps ^{6, 8}. Gate A is the only access point to the hospital, and a guide or security opens it roughly 15 minutes before a scheduled investigation start time ⁸. The building is not handicap accessible because no elevators work ⁶. Restrooms are available inside the building, and the owners advise dressing for the weather and bringing water, with bottled water sold for $1 ⁶. Pets are not allowed inside the building or left in vehicles during tours or events ⁶. The phone number is 502-690-7880, and the site lists the address as 4400 Paralee Drive, Louisville, Kentucky ^{8, 10}.