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===The Restoration===
===The Restoration===
After Alberhasky's efforts failed, Waverly Hills was sold to current owners Tina and Charlie Mattingly in 2001. Charlie's father, who died in 2005, worked as an [[orderly]] at Waverly Hills for approximately four years. The Mattinglys currently hold tours of Waverly Hills and convert the building into a [[haunted house]] attraction each Halloween. There are also historical tours, ghost tours, as well as overnight investigations available for a fee. Proceeds go toward saving the building and the restoration of the property.
After Alberhasky's efforts failed, Waverly Hills was sold to current owners Tina and Charlie Mattingly in 2001. Charlie's father, who died in 2005, worked as an [[orderly]] at Waverly Hills for approximately four years. The Mattinglys currently hold tours of Waverly Hills and convert the building into a [[haunted house]] attraction each Halloween. There are also historical tours, ghost tours, as well as overnight investigations available for a fee. Proceeds go toward saving the building and the restoration of the property.

==Structures==
===Hays House===
Originally the home of the Hays family. Used by the sanatorium as staff housing. Was destroyed by fire (date and citations to come)
===Original Sanatorium===
Opened on 26 Jul 1910, the original wooden structure opened in 1910 was an administrative building which contained offices, treatment rooms, and a kitchen. It was torn down due to it's poor condition. [http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~waverlymemorial/documents/board_of_tb_hospital/pages/3.html]
===Pavilion buildings===
The wooden pavilion buildings were built at various times in the operation of the sanatorium. The first two were standing in 1910 when the original sanatorium opened. One housed 20-25 male patients, the other 20-25 female patients. Later, with the construction of the new Main building, the southernmost pavilion building was moved to the parking lot to make room for the north wing. This building was used as housing for male staff members.
===Hospital for advanced cases===
This two story structure opened December 18, 1912 [http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~waverlymemorial/documents/board_of_tb_hospital/pages/3.html] and was designed to care for 50 advanced cases of pulmonary tuberculosis. <br />
Later, with the opening of the Main building, this building became the "Colored Hospital".
===Main building===
20 Oct 1926 was the official opening ceremony and dedication of the new building. This new state of the art building is now one of the few buildings still standing on the land.


==Legends==
==Legends==

Revision as of 21:46, 4 August 2007

Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanitarium Historic Buildings
File:Waverlyfront.jpg
Waverly Hills Sanatorium main entrance
LocationLouisville, KY
ArchitectGaffney,J. J.; Murphy,D. X.
Architectural styleOther
MPSJefferson County MRA
NRHP reference No.83002746 [1]
Added to NRHPJuly 12, 1983

Waverly Hills Sanatorium, located in Louisville, Kentucky, opened in 1910 as a two-story hospital to accommodate 40 to 50 tuberculosis patients. It has been popularized on television as being one of the "most haunted" hospitals in the eastern United States, and was seen on ABC/FOX Family Channel's Scariest Places On Earth as well as VH1's Celebrity Paranormal Project. It was also seen on the Sci Fi Channel's Ghost Hunters.[11]

History

File:Waverlylogo.jpg
Waverly Hills Sanatorium logo

How Waverly got the name

The land that is today known as Waverly Hill was purchased by Major Thomas H. Hays in 1883 as the Hays Family home. Since the new home was now so far away from any existing schools, Mr Hays decided to open a local school for his daughters to go to.[2] He started a one-room schoolhouse on Pages Lane, and hired Lizzie Lee Harris as the teacher.[3] Miss Harris loved her tiny school nestling against the hillside, and remembered her fondness for Walter Scott's Waverley novels, so she named her little school house "Waverly School".[4] Major Hays liked the peaceful sounding name, so he named his property "Waverly Hill" and the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital kept the name when they bought the land and opened the sanatorium.[5] It is not known exactly when the spelling changed to exclude the second "e" and became Waverly Hills. However the spelling fluctuated between both spellings many times over the years.[6][7][8]

Original Sanatorium

In the early 20th century, Jefferson County was severely stricken with an outbreak of tuberculosis. There were many tuberculosis cases in Louisville at the time because of all the swampland, which was perfect for the tuberculosis bacteria. To try to contain the disease, a two-story wooden sanatorium was opened which consisted of an administrative/main building and two open air pavilions, each housing 20 patients, for the treatment of "early cases".
"In the early part of 1911, the city of Louisville began to make preparations to build a new Louisville City Hospital, and the Hospital Commissioners decided in their plans that there would be no provision made in the new City Hospital for the admission of pulmonary tuberculosis, and the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital was given $25,000 to erect a hospital for the care of advanced cases of pulmonary tuberculosis". [12]

On 22 Aug 1911, all tuberculosis patients from the City Hospital were relocated to temporary quarters in tents on the grounds of Waverly Hills pending the completion of a hospital for advanced cases.[9][10]
In December of 1912 a hospital for advanced cases opened for the treatment of another 50 patients. And in 1916 a children’s pavilion added another 40 beds[11] making the known “capacity” around 130 patients.[12] This report also mentions that the goal was to add a new building each year to continually grow so there may have even been more beds available than specifically listed. It is a common misconception that the hospital made for 40 was over packed with well over 100 patients, but this is just a miscalculation due to lack of information, with only one major exception which is mentioned above.

Main Building

Due to constant need for repairs on the wooden structures, need for a more durable structure, as well as need for more beds so that people wouldn’t be turned away due to lack of space,[13] construction of a five-story building that could hold more than 400 patients began in March 1924. The new building opened on October 17, 1926, but after the introduction of streptomycin in 1943, the number of tuberculosis cases gradually lowered, until there was no longer need for such a large hospital. The remaining patients were sent to Hazelwood Sanatorium, which was also located in Louisville, and Waverly Hills closed in June of 1961. The building was reopened in 1962 as Woodhaven Geriatrics Hospital; Woodhaven was closed in 1981 allegedly due to patient abuse.


Recent developments

The Prison

" Simpsonville developer J. Clifford Todd bought the old hospital in 1983 for $305,000. He and architect Milton Thompson wanted to convert it into a minimum-security prison for the state. But the developers dropped the plan after neighbors protested. Todd and Thompson then proposed converting the hospital into apartments.
But they counted on Jefferson Fiscal Court to buy the about 140 acres from them for $400,000, giving them the money to start the project."[14]

The Statue

Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro

In March of 1996, Robert Alberhasky bought Waverly Hills and the surrounding area. Alberhasky's Christ the Redeemer Foundation Inc. had plans to construct the world's tallest statue of Jesus on the Waverly site, along with an arts and worship center. The statue, which was inspired by the famed Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, would have been designed by local sculptor Ed Hamilton and architect Jasper Ward.[15]

The first phase of the development, coming in at a cost of $4,000,000, would have been a statue 150 feet tall and 150 feet wide, situated on the roof of the sanatorium. The second phase would convert the old sanatorium into a chapel, theater, and a gift shop at a cost of $8,000,000 or more.[16]

The plan to construct this religious icon fell through because donations to the project fell well short of expectations. In a period of a year, only $3,000 was raised towards the effort despite efforts to pool money from across the nation. The project was cancelled in December 1997.[16]

As a result, Alberhasky abandoned the Waverly Hills property. In order to recoup some of his costs, Alberhasky attempted to have the property condemned so that it could be torn down and redeveloped. That notion was denied by the county, and Alberhasky then attempted to undermine the structural foundations of the building by bulldozing around the southern perimeter in order to receive insurance money.[15]

The Restoration

After Alberhasky's efforts failed, Waverly Hills was sold to current owners Tina and Charlie Mattingly in 2001. Charlie's father, who died in 2005, worked as an orderly at Waverly Hills for approximately four years. The Mattinglys currently hold tours of Waverly Hills and convert the building into a haunted house attraction each Halloween. There are also historical tours, ghost tours, as well as overnight investigations available for a fee. Proceeds go toward saving the building and the restoration of the property.

Structures

Hays House

Originally the home of the Hays family. Used by the sanatorium as staff housing. Was destroyed by fire (date and citations to come)

Original Sanatorium

Opened on 26 Jul 1910, the original wooden structure opened in 1910 was an administrative building which contained offices, treatment rooms, and a kitchen. It was torn down due to it's poor condition. [13]

Pavilion buildings

The wooden pavilion buildings were built at various times in the operation of the sanatorium. The first two were standing in 1910 when the original sanatorium opened. One housed 20-25 male patients, the other 20-25 female patients. Later, with the construction of the new Main building, the southernmost pavilion building was moved to the parking lot to make room for the north wing. This building was used as housing for male staff members.

Hospital for advanced cases

This two story structure opened December 18, 1912 [14] and was designed to care for 50 advanced cases of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Later, with the opening of the Main building, this building became the "Colored Hospital".

Main building

20 Oct 1926 was the official opening ceremony and dedication of the new building. This new state of the art building is now one of the few buildings still standing on the land.

Legends

Room 502

Located on the fifth floor of Waverly Hills, Room 502 was made infamous by local legends about two suicides that occurred in the room. [citation needed] In 1928, a Waverly Hills nurse, Mary Hillenburg, supposedly hanged herself from a fixture in the room after becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Other stories say that she became pregnant by a doctor that was already married and the doctor performed an abortion that went wrong. When the nurse had died the doctor allegedly had staged her suicide.

The KY death index reveals that only two people by the name of "Hillenburg" have died in Kentucky. Both died significantly later than the rumored date, and in fact well after Waverly Hills closed.

While a former employee of the facility seems to corroborate the hanging,[citation needed] none substantiate the nurse jumping from the roof. Although there are no documented deaths to these two suicides, as confirmed by the SciFi Channel series Ghost Hunters, it has not stopped those with EMF meters and other ghost-hunting equipment from claiming that there are spirits haunting this infamous room.[17] These two suicides have caused many different tales to be circulated throughout the years.

The "Death Tunnel"

The so-called "death tunnel" is an inclined corridor that was first constructed for workers to be able to move supplies in and out of the building, but soon it was used for a different purpose. [citation needed] One side of the tunnel consists of concrete steps while the other is made up of a motorized rail and cable system. Since the deaths were beginning to rise, the staff decided to use the tunnel to place the bodies of the dead which were placed on gurneys and then lowered to the bottom. When they were at the bottom of the tunnel, hearses would soon arrive to pick them up. Corpses were transported out by this method in order to keep them out of sight from the still-living patients and thus continue boosting the hospital morale.

Death Rate

Legend
Estimates vary wildly of how many died at Waverly. Some put the total at 63,000; however, that number is believed to be for statewide deaths.
Additional Facts
Evidence suggests that the worst total of deaths at Waverly was 152, which would make the overall death count considerably less than the legend. This information was found in the autobiography of Assistant Medical Director Dr. J. Frank W. Stewart, who states that the worst time for deaths was at the end of the Second World War when many soldiers were returning from overseas with very advanced cases[18]

Draining Room

Legend
One of the more eerie legends of Waverly Hills was a place known as "The Draining Room." Located near the morgue of the hospital, this room was created in an effort to rid the dead bodies of infected fluids and to make the bodies lighter for transport in the "death tunnel." After a patient died, doctors would hang the dead on tall poles in the room with drains at the bottom. They would then cut the bodies from sternum to groin so that the bodily fluids would drain from the body. Jefferson County townspeople didn't want bodies brought to the town for fear of infection, so this was the alternative. From the draining room, they were placed on gurneys and escorted down the death tunnel.[citation needed]
Additional Facts
However this legend is completely untrue. The room in question is clearly labeled as the Transformer room on the 1924 AND 1962 mechanical drawings [15]. The large metal door is clearly stamped with "Fire Protection"[16]. There are openings in the wall between this room and power distribution next door where electrical wiring passed through the wall. Also, hospitals do not, nor did they ever have anything to do with preparing the bodies in any way. That job would be completed by the funeral director hired by the decedent's family, or if no family existed, the funeral director contracted by the county.

Waverly Hills in entertainment

Sounds of the Underground

Waverly Hills Sanatorium will host the last show of the touring music festival Sounds of the Underground 2007 on August 11th. The show will feature prominent acts in the extreme metal and metalcore scene, including Job for a Cowboy, The Acacia Strain, Hatebreed, Shadows Fall, and Lamb of God. It is unknown whether or not Waverly Hills Sanatorium plans to hold similar festivals or concerts in the future.

References

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23.
  2. ^ article from Waverly Herald, circa 1953 paragraph 7 line 1 [1]
  3. ^ article from Waverly Herald, circa 1953 paragraph 7 line 6 [2]
  4. ^ article from Waverly Herald, circa 1953 paragraph 9 line 4[3]
  5. ^ article from Waverly Herald, circa 1953 paragraph 11[4]
  6. ^ Postcard (with 2nd E) Located in display case in the laundry building at Waverly.[5]
  7. ^ Postcard (without 2nd E)[6]
  8. ^ Endowment booklet (with 2nd E)[7]
  9. ^ History of Waverly Hills from the Waverly Herald, pages 3 & 4
  10. ^ Report of the Board of Tuberculosis Hospitals page 3
  11. ^ History of Waverly Hills from the Waverly Herald, page 12 paragraph 2 [8]
  12. ^ Report of the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital written by Dr. Dunning S Wilson (Medical Director of Waverly Hills) and L. J. Dittmar (President of the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital)[9]
  13. ^ Sanatorium Has Waiting List for Treatment, Effective In Early Stages - The Louisville Times Dec 5 1928
  14. ^ "Famed hospital now a white elephant" Courier-Journal article in Neighborhoods South-End section Aug 13-14 1986 page 1
  15. ^ a b "World tallest Christ statue planned for Waverly Hills." The Courier-Journal [Louisville] Mar. 1996: 1.
  16. ^ a b "Jesus statue 'would take a miracle'." Kentucky Post 12 Dec. 1997: 1.
  17. ^ Ghost Hunters episode #214, aired March 29, 2006 - Waverly Hills Investigation
  18. ^ Sunrise/Sunset-Autobiography written by Dr. J. Frank W. Stewart who was Assistant Medical Director at Waverly Hills. Worked at Waverly Hills from 1945-1955
  19. ^ Interview with Jason and Grant from Ghost Hunters [10]
  • Spooked: The Ghosts of Waverly Hills Sanatorium, (2006) documentary.

External links

38°07′48.53″N 85°50′30.22″W / 38.1301472°N 85.8417278°W / 38.1301472; -85.8417278

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