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Waverly Hills Sanatorium

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The Waverly Hills Sanatorium is a former sanatorium located in the Waverly Hills neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium
Main entrance
Map
Geography
LocationKentucky, United States
Organization
TypeSpecialist
Specialtytuberculosis sanatorium
History
Opened1910
Closed1961
Links
ListsHospitals in Kentucky
Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium Historic Buildings
Location4400 Paralee Dr.,
Louisville, Kentucky
ArchitectJames J. Gaffney, Dennis Xavier Murphy
MPSJefferson County MRA
NRHP reference No.83002746[1]
Added to NRHPJuly 12, 1983

In the early 1900s, Jefferson County was ravaged by an outbreak of tuberculosis – known as the "White Plague" – which prompted the construction of a new hospital. The Sanatorium opened in 1910 as a two-story facility able to accommodate between 40 and 50 tuberculosis patients. The hospital closed in 1961, due to the success of antibiotic drug streptomycin in lowering the needs for such a facility. At some point, plans were made to turn the abandoned hospital into a hotel, but this is no longer the case.[2][3][4]

History

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The land that is known today as "Waverly Hill" was purchased by Major Thomas H. Hays in 1883 as the Hays family home. Since the new home was far away from any existing schools, Mr. Hays decided to open a local school for his daughters to attend.[5] He started a one-room schoolhouse on Pages Lane and hired Lizzie Lee Harris as the teacher.[5] Due to Miss Harris' fondness for Walter Scott's Waverley novels, she named the schoolhouse Waverley School.[5] Major Hays liked the peaceful-sounding name, so he named his property Waverley Hill. 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

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In the early 1900s, Jefferson County was severely stricken with an outbreak of tuberculosis. There were many tuberculosis cases in Louisville at the time because of all the wetlands along the Ohio River, which were 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.[9]

On August 31, 1912, 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 1912, a hospital for advanced cases opened for the treatment of another 40 patients. In 1914, a children's pavilion added another 50 beds[11] making the known "capacity" around 130 patients.[12] The children's pavilion was not only for sick children but also for the children of tuberculosis patients who could not be cared for properly otherwise. 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.

Building of a durable facility and later closing of the sanatorium

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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 would not 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 in Louisville. Waverly Hills closed in June 1961.

Woodhaven Medical Services

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The building was reopened in 1962 as Woodhaven Geriatric Center, a nursing home primarily treating aging patients with various stages of dementia and mobility limits, as well as the severely mentally handicapped. However, Woodhaven failed greatly because it was severely understaffed and overcrowded. Woodhaven also had reports over patient neglect and was closed by the state of Kentucky in 1980.[14]

Prison

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Simpsonville developer J. Clifford Todd bought the hospital in 1983 for $3,005,000. 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 around 140 acres (57 ha) from them for $400,000, giving them the money to start the project.[15]

Statue

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In March 1996, Robert Alberhasky bought Waverly Hills and the surrounding area. Alberhasky's Christ the Redeemer Foundation Inc. made plans to construct the world's tallest statue of Jesus on the 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.[16] The first phase of the development, coming in at a cost of $4 million, would have been a statue of 150 feet (46 m) tall and 150 feet (46 m) 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 million or more.[17]

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 project despite efforts to pool money from across the nation. The project was canceled in December 1997.[17]

Restoration

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After Alberhasky's efforts failed, Waverly Hills was sold to Tina and Charlie Mattingly in 2001. The Mattinglys hold tours of Waverly Hills and host a haunted house attraction each Halloween, with proceeds going toward restoration of the property. They're also currently restoring all the windows in the decrepit building while restoring the interior of the old sanatorium.[18][19]

Sounds of the Underground Music Festival

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Waverly Hills Sanatorium hosted the last show of the touring music festival Sounds of the Underground on August 11, 2007. The show featured prominent acts in the extreme metal and metalcore scene, including Job for a Cowboy, The Acacia Strain, Hatebreed, Shadows Fall, Chimaira, GWAR, Cameo, Lamb of God, and The Number Twelve Looks Like You. Similar festivals or concerts will likely not happen again at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, due to complaints made by local residents.[20]

Tunnel

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The sanatorium featured a tunnel built to carry steam and supplies between the heating plant located at the bottom of the hill and the main sanatorium building. The tunnel was equipped with a cable car used to transport items up and down the passageway. According to a number of stories and anecdotes, during a limited time between the 1920s and 1940s the tunnel also served to transport corpses to a waiting ambulance at the bottom of the hill, sparing patients the knowledge that someone had died.[21]

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  • Waverly Hills has been popularized on the television show Ghost Hunters as being one of the "most haunted" hospitals in the eastern United States.[22]
  • Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej from the web-series Buzzfeed Unsolved visited the location in season 2 for one of their supernatural episodes. They later revisited it for the series premiere of Ghost Files, a similar series hosted on their independent Watcher channel.[23]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. ^ Davis, Alex. "Spooky Waverly Hills may return as hotel", The Courier-Journal, August 7, 2008.[dead link‍]
  3. ^ Renovations hopeful for haunted hotel Archived January 13, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, Fox41.com
  4. ^ "Waverly Hills is preparing to open for Halloween tours, but its owners still have bigger plans". Louisville Business First. Archived from the original on December 13, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2015.
  5. ^ a b c d Detert, Fred. "How Waverly Hills Got Its Name" Archived April 27, 2024, at the Wayback Machine, Waverly Herald, circa 1953.
  6. ^ Postcard (with 2nd E), located in display case in the laundry building at Waverly
  7. ^ Postcard Archived June 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (without 2nd E)
  8. ^ Endowment booklet (with 2nd E)
  9. ^ a b Report of Board of Tuberculosis Hospitals (1915) Archived April 27, 2024, at the Wayback Machine. Freepages.history.rootsweb.com. Retrieved on 2011-11-27.
  10. ^ "History of Waverly Hills", The Waverly Herald, pp. 3–4
  11. ^ "History of Waverly Hills" Archived April 27, 2024, at the Wayback Machine, The Waverly Herald
  12. ^ Wilson, Dunning S.; Dittmar, L. J. Report of the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital Archived January 30, 2024, at the Wayback Machine, Dr. Dunning S Wilson was Medical Director of Waverly Hills. L. J. Dittmar was President of the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital.
  13. ^ "Sanatorium Has Waiting List for Treatment, Effective In Early Stages", The Louisville Times, December 5, 1928.
  14. ^ Bartlett, Beverly (November 23, 1989). "Waverly Hills (Part 2)". The Courier-Journal. p. 60. Archived from the original on June 2, 2024. Retrieved June 1, 2024 – via newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "Famed hospital now a white elephant", The Courier-Journal, August 13–14, 1986, p.1.
  16. ^ "World tallest Christ statue planned for Waverly Hills", The Courier-Journal [Louisville], March 1996: 1.
  17. ^ a b "Jesus statue 'would take a miracle'." Kentucky Post December 12, 1997: 1.
  18. ^ Seewer, John. "Haunted houses mix big-budget scenes and settings for ghoulish getaways"[dead link‍], The Canadian Press, October 2, 2009.
  19. ^ "Waverly Hills Sanatorium Haunted House", The Courier-Journal, October 3, 2009.
  20. ^ "PLEASURE RIDGE PARK: Waverly Hills rock concert was its last: Neighbors outraged by noise, vulgarities", The Courier-Journal, August 22, 2007.
  21. ^ Pohl, Lynn (2022). Waverly Hills Sanatorium: A History. Arcadia Publishing. p. 135. ISBN 9781467149990. Archived from the original on June 2, 2024. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  22. ^ Hussain, Tania (May 27, 2020). "'Ghost Hunters': Kristen Luman Previews Team's 'Return to Waverly Hills' Sanatorium With Haunting Season Finale (Exclusive)". Popculture.com. Archived from the original on October 21, 2022. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
  23. ^ Lovitt, Maggie (September 21, 2022). "'Ghost Files': Ryan Bergara & Shane Madej Unpack Their Return to Paranormal Investigation". Collider. Archived from the original on October 21, 2022. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
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