Six generations of the same family have owned this 1910 Monroe castle built around an 1814 plantation cottage; a child buried on the property reportedly appears standing dry in the rain
820 S Grand St, Monroe, LA 71202
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ticketed ghost-hunter tours and visits; see laytoncastle.com for current pricing and availability
Access
Limited Access
Historic multi-story castle and grounds; uneven terrain on property including grave site
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1910 · Six-Generation Family Ownership · 1814 Plantation Cottage Core · Mulberry Grove Plantation History · Ouachita Parish Heritage · Monroe Historic District
The property at 820 S Grand Street in Monroe has a documented history extending to 1814, when the original structure known as Mulberry Grove was built. The plantation cottage served as the family seat through the 19th century. In 1910, the family constructed a castle-style structure around and incorporating the 1814 core, creating the building now known as Layton Castle.
The property has remained in the Layton family for six continuous generations — an unusually long period of single-family ownership for any Louisiana property, and particularly notable for a site with documented pre-Civil War origins. The multi-generational ownership has preserved both the physical structure and the family records associated with it.
Georgette Layton, a child who died at approximately age ten in 1901, is buried on the property. The Ouachita Parish historical society's 2022 article on the castle documents Georgette's burial and her significance to the family's history. Georgette died from what the historical record describes as a lingering illness rather than from trauma or violence. Her grave on the private family property is included in the ghost-hunter tours offered by the current owner.
The castle and its grounds have been featured in Monroe's Historic Haunts event, organized by the Masur Museum of Art, which draws attention to historically significant Monroe properties and their associated stories.
Sources
Layton Castle's paranormal reputation centers on a single, well-documented figure: Georgette Layton, who died at approximately age ten from a lingering illness in 1901 and is buried on the property. The current sixth-generation owner describes and documents the apparition accounts in the context of the ghost-hunter tours offered at the castle.
The most specific account attached to Georgette's apparition is the image of a child appearing outside on the castle grounds during rainstorms — seen by witnesses as dry despite the rain falling around her. The specificity of the detail (standing dry in rain) distinguishes this from generic presence reports and makes it one of the more precisely described apparition accounts in the region's paranormal literature.
The family's direct connection to Georgette — she is their ancestor, buried on their land, whose history they maintain — gives the accounts at Layton Castle a different character than most haunted venue claims. The owner is not reporting something that happened to strangers; the haunting is part of the family's ongoing relationship with their own documented history.
Notable Entities
The sixth-generation owner of Layton Castle offers ghost-hunter tours of the property, which includes the 1910 castle built around an 1814 plantation-era cottage. The tour covers the documented history of the Layton family, the graves on the property including that of Georgette Layton, and the reported paranormal accounts centered on Georgette's apparition.
Layton Castle is featured on the Monroe Historic Haunts guided ghost tour event organized by the Masur Museum of Art. The tour combines multiple Monroe historic sites and their associated histories.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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