HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
+ 4 further entries on record
Louisville's Gothic Tuberculosis Hospital and Its Body Chute
4400 Paralee Drive, Louisville, KY 40272
Research updated August 2026
Age
Historical tours: all ages. Paranormal tours and investigations: varies by event — check site.
Cost
$$
Historical tours available. Paranormal tours start around $40/person; 6-hour public overnight investigations approximately $100/person; private 8-hour investigations available for larger groups. See xtremeticketing.com/therealwaverlyhills for current pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Massive five-story structure with extensive staircases. The body chute is a 500-foot sloped tunnel requiring physical navigation. No elevators.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1910 · Tuberculosis History · Gothic Revival Architecture · Louisville Heritage
Jefferson County had one of the highest tuberculosis death rates in the country by 1900, driven by crowded urban conditions. In 1906 the Louisville Anti-Tuberculosis Association formed a Board of Tuberculosis Hospital and purchased a ridgeline estate southwest of the city, previously home to a schoolhouse called Waverley, after Walter Scott's novels. A modest two-story building opened there July 26, 1910, with room for 40 to 50 patients; demand outran it within a few years. Construction on a five-story Gothic Revival replacement, designed by architects James J. Gaffney and Dennis Xavier Murphy, began in March 1924 and opened October 17, 1926, with capacity for more than 400 patients. The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Like most Kentucky institutions of the period, Waverly Hills was segregated. The main five-story building served white patients; a separate 28-room wooden structure, which burned down before the current owners bought the property, housed Black patients under more limited conditions, including no on-site surgical suite. Standard tuberculosis treatment of the era combined rest, sunlight, and a high-calorie diet with more invasive procedures, including pneumothorax and thoracoplasty for advanced cases. Death-toll claims for the facility have long been inflated, with figures as high as 63,000 repeated in some accounts. Death-certificate research and the recollection of former assistant medical director J. Frank Stewart put the documented count closer to 6,000 deaths over its operating history, with roughly 150 deaths in its worst year.
Streptomycin ended the tuberculosis era by the early 1950s. Waverly Hills closed in June 1961, reopened in 1962 as Woodhaven Geriatric Center, and closed again in 1980 after state inspectors cited neglect. Tina and Charlie Mattingly bought the property in 2001 and have run tours and a slow structural restoration since.
Sources
Room 502, on the sanatorium's fifth floor, is the building's most cited legend. The story holds that a nurse hanged herself there in 1928 after becoming pregnant by a staff physician, and that a second nurse died in a fall or jump from the same room the following year. Neither death appears in a public historical record. Researchers who have examined the story note the room's light fixture was not installed until a 1972 renovation, which undercuts the hanging account as commonly told. The legend persists regardless and is cited by nearly every investigation team that has worked the building.
Timmy, a name attached to a child patient in the former pediatric ward, is unconfirmed against any surviving patient record. Visitors who leave a ball in the ward report it rolling back on its own; whether that reflects a genuine phenomenon, a sloped floor, or expectation is untested.
The body chute, the 500-foot tunnel that moved supplies up and the deceased down, out of the sight of living patients, draws the most consistent visitor reports: shadow figures at the tunnel's far end, a sensation of contact on the shoulders or arms, and recorded audio anomalies during formal investigations.
Waverly Hills has hosted a long run of televised paranormal investigations since 2007, listed in mediaAppearances below, which has made Room 502 and the body chute two of the most referenced sites in American paranormal television.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
A daytime, non-paranormal guided walk through the building focused on the sanatorium's tuberculosis-era medical history, patient life, and the 1926 Gothic Revival architecture. No dark rooms or investigation equipment; runs in normal building lighting.
A guided evening tour of all five floors covering the building's tuberculosis history and the documented paranormal reports tied to each section, including Room 502 and the fourth-floor ward. Shorter and less physically demanding than the overnight investigations.
Semi-guided overnight investigation of all five floors plus the body chute, the 500-foot underground tunnel once used to move the deceased out of the building during the tuberculosis era. Participants can work documented hotspots including Room 502, the fourth-floor ward, and the former children's area.
A shorter, family-oriented overnight investigation of the building aimed at younger participants, run under the same semi-guided format as the adult public investigations but with adjusted pacing and content. Age policy and adult-supervision requirements should be confirmed directly with the venue at booking.
An exclusive, group-only 8-hour investigation with full access to the building and body chute, without the public event's other participants. Offered on a seasonal, limited-date basis; contact the venue for current availability and group pricing.
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