The first property Rockefeller bought for Colonial Williamsburg, haunted by its last eccentric resident who was committed to an asylum in 1812
207 E Duke of Gloucester St, Williamsburg, VA 23185
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Exterior viewable for free from Duke of Gloucester St; interior access may require a Colonial Williamsburg ticket
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat brick sidewalk along Duke of Gloucester Street; exterior viewing is easy
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1753 · First Colonial Williamsburg Acquisition (1926) · Philip Ludwell III · Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Colonial Virginia · Rockefeller Restoration · Colonial Williamsburg National Historic Landmark District
Philip Ludwell III commissioned the two-story Georgian brick house at 207 East Duke of Gloucester Street in 1752–1753. It was built as a rental property, not a primary residence; Ludwell himself had converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in 1738 while in London and spent much of his later life in England. He died in 1767, and the Williamsburg property passed to his daughter Lucy.
Lucy Ludwell was born in 1751 at Greenspring, near Williamsburg. In 1769 she married John Paradise, a fellow Eastern Orthodox convert, in London. The marriage was troubled and expensive; Lucy developed a reputation for erratic public behavior that made her a subject of London gossip. She returned to Williamsburg permanently in August 1805 after John Paradise's death.
Back in Virginia, Lucy continued the behaviors that had alarmed her London acquaintances. She kept her carriage inside the house and pretended to ride in it for entertainment. She bathed compulsively — multiple times daily, by contemporary accounts — and her eccentric appearances and spending alarmed both neighbors and the courts. In January 1812, she was committed to the Williamsburg Public Hospital (later Eastern State Hospital), where she died on April 24, 1814.
In December 1926, the Reverend W.A.R. Goodwin approached John D. Rockefeller Jr. about preserving Williamsburg's colonial buildings. Rockefeller authorized the purchase of the Ludwell-Paradise House for $8,000, making it the first property acquired with Rockefeller funds for what would become the Colonial Williamsburg restoration. The house is now managed by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Sources
The paranormal reports at the Ludwell-Paradise House cluster around Lucy's documented behaviors. The most specific account comes from a retired vice president of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, who described hearing the sound of running water and splashing from the second-floor bathtub up to twelve times — each time finding no one present. The detail gains weight from the historical record: Lucy's compulsive bathing, documented by multiple contemporaries, was one of the behaviors cited as evidence of her erratic state of mind.
Other accounts are less specific. Staff and visitors have reported sudden cold drafts in rooms where windows and doors are closed, footsteps on the upper floor when the house is unoccupied, and what several people have described as faint crying, heard most often near the staircase.
The house does not operate as a ghost tour destination. Colonial Williamsburg includes it on walking tours of the historic area, and several independent Williamsburg ghost tour operators use it as a stop, drawing the connection between Lucy's institutionalization and the continued reports from the building she occupied for the last seven years of her life outside the asylum.
Notable Entities
The Ludwell-Paradise House sits on Duke of Gloucester Street and can be viewed from the street. Colonial Williamsburg ghost tours that include the house depart regularly from the historic area. The house is managed by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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