What The Ale?
33. Waverly Hills Sanatorium
ghosts, cryptids, murder, conspiracies, beer, what? The L. Hello, hello friends. Hello friends. I mean, we can just dive right in. I know it has been at least three weeks and I'm so sorry to all of you. I, as you all probably gathered, I moved across the country and that was a lot more chaotic and stressful and like just didn't have the time really to record. And so thanks for being patient with us. I hope we didn't lose any of you. But it was a job offer and I moved pretty much immediately, which means you had to find someone to take over your open apartment. You had a celebrant furniture, you had to go down and see family and so Cal to say goodbye to them. I mean, it was like a lot to handle in just a couple of short weeks. So, yeah, it was, it was insane, but we did it. And I'm here in Boston staying in a lovely Airbnb until I can move into my real apartment. And, yeah. You love the job and it's worth it. So, oh, I do. I love my job so much more than my last job. So, I'm very excited about that. And it was definitely the right choice to take the job and come as quickly as possible. So, definitely like last weekend, all I wanted to do was like lay in bed and watch movies. I had no energy. Yeah, it had been a lot. It was very chaotic. And my garage is full of stuff just to show how chaotic it was. We're okay. We're working it out. We're going to fix that when I move or when I come back this summer, we're going to drive my car across. It's going to be great. Yeah, congratulations on the new job, killing it, love it for you. It's good to see your face on zoom. Yeah, it's good to see your face, Mom. Do you have any what the L moments this week? Other than the cast that has been the last few weeks of you moving and the fact that you moved across country again. I think my chaotic or my with the L moment was I had a chaotic issue with a prom dress that was supposed to arrive on time and did not arrive on time. So, I had to have that conversation with my child who is very unhappy about it. And then we had to. Take last night just to find another prom dress that will fit and be available because the prom is this or the ball senior ball is this Saturday. So it was stressful and chaotic when I realized that the dress wasn't coming on time having to break that news to the child who loved the dress. And then having to find another dress that was the right color and all of that because the boyfriend had already. Purchased all his stuff in the color that they wanted. So, yeah, it was chaotic and stressful, but we worked it out. Well, I'm glad you worked it out, but that's totally sucks. You know, especially with you want to prom or ball or whatever you want to look your best. Yeah, well, in the whole rite of passage thing, you know, my kid doesn't get excited for many of those things. So the fact that they were very excited for ball and then it went sideways, you know, I wanted to make sure we corrected it so that they could be back to being able to. They could be back to being excited about it. Totally. Yeah. Totally, totally. What about you? Well, my life has been chaotic, but I am kind of good with the L moment, which is that the reason why I moved to Boston is one of my best friends from grad school recommended me for this job and all the things. And it came with a promise that I would be inducted into her wonderful, queer and amazing friend group of people. And I have officially been invited to get Indian food and then watch Bollywood movies on Friday with the whole friend group. And I am just really grateful and feeling really full that I have like a wonderful friend who like wants to bring me into her world and like make sure that I'm getting settled comfortably and all the things. So, yeah, just excited. Yeah, community is important. So, yeah. Yeah, well, and I feel like a lot of my friends left after grad school. So it's nice that my friends would are still here like, yeah, let's hang out and do things. Yeah, so, yeah. All right, you drinking anything special. In honor of me being in Boston, I'm having a good old fashioned Hapoon or harpoon, which is an IPA that is very local to New England. So, yeah, what about you? Well, because of the time difference, I am at my office, so I am drinking a big glass of water. So, you know what, hydrate or hydrate friends, I did not hydrate until, yeah, yesterday did not drink a lot of water and that was not good for me did not feel good. So, hydrate is very important. Yeah. All right, so what story you got for us this week. Well, my friends, and I had been wanting to do this location for a while and I was actually kind of surprised by how quick it is going to be, but I wanted to do a good old fashioned haunted building. Okay. So, mom, have you ever heard of the Waverly Hill sanatorium? I don't know. I mean, you might start talking and I go, oh yeah, I remember, but it doesn't come to mind. Yeah, so I will say that this location is very well known in paranormal circles, pretty much any ghost hunter. It's one of the places they go. I'm pretty sure we've watched the unsolved episode about it together, so you might recognize a couple of a little ghosty. I was going to say it's probably something that I've seen on a show and I just don't remember the name. Yeah, but I'll give you some of the history and then we'll talk about the ghosts. Like I said, it's kind of a short one, which I was surprised about, but I also didn't want to watch like hours of investigations of people just getting like orbs on the screen. Yeah, that's kind of why it's a little on the shorter side too. But so the sanatorium is located in the Waverly Hills neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. The land was originally purchased in 1883 by Major Thomas H. Hayes, and he wanted to build his family home on the property. But, you know, this is before cars and things and the land was really far from any of the existing schools in Louisville. So he decided to build a local school on the property so children could assign. And it started out made it be proactive. That's good. You know, I mean, good for him. We love education in this family. But yeah, so it started out as a one room school house on pages lane and Lizzie Lee Harris was hired as a school teacher. The teacher herself had a fondness for Walter Scott Waverly novels so it was named the Waverly school. And Hayes actually likes the name so much that he named the property Waverly Hill. So that's kind of the history of the land. But after, you know, the hazes had moved on and everything in the early 1900s, there was an outbreak of the white plague, which do you know what that is. The white plague. I don't know. Good old tuberculosis TB consumption, you name it, the white plague. Okay, I'll into Jefferson County. And apparently because it was on the Ohio River and there was a lot of wetlands. It was like the perfect breeding ground for the disease to spread. And so the board of tuberculosis hospitals decided to buy the land and open a sanatorium. And it was originally going to be kind of like early cases of TB and at the time a lot of the treatments included like getting out into open air. That's just like how they thought it would happen. So it was kind of built as a two story facility that could accommodate 40 to 50 patients that opened in 1910. There was also a main admin building with two open air pavilions. Like I said, they thought just having fresh air would help cure the disease. Yeah. And so in 1911, the county wanted to build a Louisville city hospital, but the hospital was not going to allow for the care of pulmonary tuberculosis or like the advanced cases. And so what they ended up doing was giving 25,000 to the sanatorium to build a five story hospital to care for the advanced patients who had tuberculosis. So this building would, it began construction in 1924 and opened in October of 1926. It was, as I mentioned, a five story hospital that could house over 400 patients. And it wasn't so this opened in 26 it wasn't until 1943 that the antibiotic was kind of created that could fight TV. And so, it wasn't like I said till 43 and then cases started lowering. And by 1961 the hospital had all that closed because or the tuberculosis part of the hospital closed. But a lot of people think that souls are still here as you know a lot of people did not survive the disease and the tuberculosis vaccine had been out for a while as well. At the end, but I guess a lot of treatments, as I mentioned the open porches and things, but they also had the idea of doing or exposing lungs to ultraviolet light so they thought if you were in sons or in some rooms with specialized lights that you could like shine on yourself to get the symptoms and they thought that could help with TV. They also would surgically implant balloons and then fill them with air to expand the patient's lungs. And there was also an operation where ribs were removed to allow the rib cage and the lungs to expand. And so because of all of this, a lot of people believe there's like not so great energy because of the treatments that were involved. And so they built some things that patients would not see how many patients were dying called a body shoot. Is this right at all. I don't know, like it, I don't know, go ahead. Okay, so it's essentially an enclosed tunnel that's about 500 yards and it leads from the hospital to the train tracks at the bottom of the hill. So just like wheel patients bodies down and then put them on the cable car. Like they had a cable car in there that would kind of lower the patients to the track. And then, like I said, they didn't want people to see how many people were dying. So they would like put them on the trains and let them be buried or handled. However, that went. Oh, wow. And so all in all, they did a lot of calculations. A lot of, you know, ghost hunting shows are like tens of thousands of people died here and we don't know the real number. But there was a doctor named Frank Stewart. He was the assistant medical director and he claims that the highest number of deaths in a year was 152. And that towards the end of its time it was as low as 42. So the kind of guesstimate is about 6000 people died while the hospital was in operation. So, as I mentioned, the sanitarium closed in 1961 because the success of streptomycin to fight TV was massive and there was no need for a TV ward. But a year later they reopened it as a geriatric sanitarium. And there were lots of rumors of patient mistreatment and the usual experience, unusual experiments and things like that being conducted. I didn't see a lot about experiments, but I do know that they did use electroshock therapy as a way to treat various ailments. During that time, that was pretty standard and then I think the 60s and, you know, I mean, we've all seemed like one flew over the cuckoo's nest and things were, you know, mental health hospitals are not great, but, you know, I don't want to claim I don't really know. Yeah, I don't know, but eventually in 1982 the state closed the facility for good after budget cuts and things were leading to bad conditions and patient mistreatment. And so at least there is some truth to that. Like I said, there just wasn't a lot of info as to why or what happened. And then it did kind of change hands a couple of times. So in 1983 the land was purchased to build a minimum security prison for Kentucky. But they dropped the plans after there were a lot of neighbor complaints and so then they decided to turn it into condos, but there was a lack of financial backing so that project just kind of failed. In 1996 the land is bought by Robert, and he wanted to construct the world's largest Jesus statue with an ownership center. And he wanted it. The world's largest Jesus statue. I just need to process that for a minute. How big do you want this statue to be? I mean, it would have been awesome if he wanted it to be like bigger than the one in Rio de Janeiro, the famous like, I was going to say, is that, I mean, like, yeah, how big do you want this thing to be. That would be a big ass statue. And that's not even the building is just the statue. Yeah, so he had only bought the land. He didn't actually raise money to build the statue and he needed about $12 million to build one of this magnitude. So after only a year of trying to fundraise, he only got $3,000. So he just kind of abandoned the property and then he. Sorry, I'm laughing because this guy is funny. Yeah, he abandoned the property and tried to have the building condemned. And this was because there were rumors that there is demolition work going along this other edge of the building that would damage the structural integrity of the building so that he could collect the insurance money. Yeah, but the sorry, I keep laughing. This man is just goofy. So anyway, the state or the county or whoever stopped it. They were like, dude, stop it. But five years later, in 2001, the owners Charlie and Tina mattingly bought the property. And they, they still own way really hills. And so they kind of just turned it into a paranormal attraction. They let people come and tour the grounds. They let people do paranormal investigation. They are really, you know, doing the things, but they also like let the building. Well, I mean, in general, the land passed so many hands and nothing happened. So the building just kind of sat there and like teens would go and vandalize it and do things and stuff. So have a party there and all that. Yeah, exactly. So it really does. Now it is look like a very spooky building. There's just graffiti all over the walls and it's kind of in disrepair and whatever, but they leave it that way because they want it to be spooky for ghost hunters. So, let's get into some of the ghosties. So, like I said, the sanatorium has the reputation of being one of the most haunted places in the world. And before it was designated on the National Register of Historic Places, as I mentioned, it was left to decay. So that's why a lot of it is very rough around the edges. And it was, like I said, a popular ghost hunting location for teens and investigators. And pretty quickly, there were a lot of stories about seeing shadow people and ghostly children. A lot of people think that children are linked to the school. Not, or maybe also to the tuberculosis word like children would also be in there. Obviously not the geriatric hospital that it became later. Yeah. One popular ghost is a little girl who runs up and down the third floor of Solarium. There's also a little boy who is really popular at the hospital and his name is Timmy. And Timmy is the day throw up ball with Timmy in the show. Yeah. I do remember this. I was like, some of it sounds familiar, but I remember the name Timmy and I remember they were like throwing the ball. Yeah. Yeah. So, as you mentioned, Timmy likes to play ball. So, sometimes people see Timmy and he's holding a leather ball. And then sometimes people will bring like little racquetballs or bouncy balls and they'll throw it down the hallway. And sometimes it'll come back. So they tried to replicate this on ghost files and BuzzFeed unsolved and they threw the ball and the two investigators named the Ryan and Shane and the ball like went down the hallway and then into a room and under the name Ryan. So Ryan flipped out. He's so cute when he flips out. You're like, okay, buddy. But Ryan flipped out Shane was like, it's a coincidence. And then, you know, whatever. So Ryan was like, I'm going to throw the ball the exact same way. And he tried to throw it the same way and it just landed in the middle of the floor. Which I kind of think is interesting because you would think, I don't know about people that would land like directly in the middle, but also that's just my thinking. But yeah, so that's a popular thing to play with all of Timmy. People have also seen at the back of the building, kind of near where the body shoot lets out. They wouldn't see a hearse appearing and dropping off coffins for bodies like an old Timing hers. There is also an operation of a woman who has cut risks, risks trying for help. As well, people believe she might have been one of the patients who took her own life. And there are a few stories of that, but no one's quite sure who this particular woman is. Another popular one is people see doctors. People see men in white coats just walking around. There's one often seen in the cafeteria. And around the kitchen. And it's funny because if you go in the kitchen, sometimes you'll smell the smells of cooking food. And people will often hear footsteps, you know, door swinging shut, that's super common throughout the hospital as well. Some people have reported freshly baked bread or like the smell of freshly baked bread. Okay, I would love that. I just want to hang out in that room. Yeah, I'm like, if it just smells like sourdough baking all day, that'd be wonderful. Yeah, that'd be cool. I would just hang out there and smell all the smells. Yeah, so, and then there are, there is, like I said, there's a doctor who walks around in the cafeteria and kitchen area. There's also someone in a white coat walking around. The fourth floor, they believe it's a doctor man in a white coat. And then there's one more story that I kind of think is sad, but there was a ghost of a man who was homeless and they were assuming he probably went in the hospital to like take shelter and his dog and they found him falling at like in the elevator shaft. Or like he had fallen into the other dog. So they think like he took shelter like after the building was already closed down. Yeah, and he, you know, didn't know what door was an elevator and fell to his staff. And the interesting thing is two people see the dog. So I don't know, like did he act like was he carrying the dog or was the dog just like kind of a random addition, you know, I don't know, but a lot of people have both seen the man and they have seen the dog. Walking around the building. So that is interesting. Well, dogs are loyal though. I mean, even though the male fell and the dog didn't, the dog might have stayed close by, you know, yeah, I don't know, but or maybe the dog didn't know how to get out of building. Yeah, that is true. That is true. But there is one more like pretty, pretty haunted area in this hospital and that is room 502. Many people experience shapes moving in the windows. They'll see faces like on the other side of the glass. They hear disembodied voices. And I don't know how much of a record there is of this, but people have reportedly jumped to their deaths from this room. But a lot of people believe that these stories are like these experiences happen because two pretty sad deaths happened in or around room 502. So there was a nurse in 1928 who is believed to have taken her own life. They believe she hung herself and she was found hanging in front of the room. And it's unknown for how long she had gone undiscovered, but she reportedly was unmarried and pregnant. And so some people believe she took her life because her partner or like the baby's dad was not going to help her with it or was not supportive. Other people believe maybe she had actually died during like an illegal abortion and then they staged the suicide to like hide the fact that that had happened. But again, that could just be speculation. No one really knows and it was 1928. So hard to tell. But another nurse actually jumped from the window in room 502 to her dad in 1932. And, you know, all ghost hunters are like, well, maybe she was pushed, but again, we don't know. So those were kind of again, like I said, two very sad deaths that happened in this room. Something I did find though is that there are some contradictions to some of the story. I guess like a lot of people who have investigated the rumor like how would the nurse have hung herself like the light fixture wasn't strong enough to support a body and then there was like a pipe but the pipe wasn't added until the 70s. And so they were saying, you know, maybe there was something there before but there wasn't anything at the time as far as they know that like could have supported the weight of a human body. And then they said that there is a former staff member who has come forward and claimed that these were true and he remembers the things happening. But he would have been six to 10 years old at the time of the deaths. So even if he was former staff like he wouldn't have potentially been there. I don't think unless like his parents were there or TV or something. That's kind of interesting. I will say during the bus. I didn't watch the new they did like be reinvestigated it again but they, the initial time they investigated they didn't really have anything there were like lots of like sounds like slamming doors and things but yeah, that could be wind. So that is kind of hard to say. Well, and they always you know Ryan always jumps at everything and thinks everything is something and Shane doesn't think anything is ever anything so yeah they're very entertaining because they. It's very different vibe. Yeah, there's some funny like Shane, she was like, I mean, this building isn't nice like it's kind of unsettling being here but it's fine, you know, like this is so odd to identify. Yeah, but yeah, so that's kind of the way really hills like I think I like maybe mix this location up with another one and thought there were a lot more those so this is kind of a short and sweet one but I wanted to do a haunted building. So, what do you think. Yeah, I mean, I remember the episode, you know I listen to so many podcasts I've probably heard other stories of it I just don't remember because I listened to too many things. Yeah, but I remember that episode and yeah I mean I did think it was kind of fun the ball like landing under the name Ryan or whatever. Yeah, I remember that big like huh that's a weird coincidence if it's a coincidence. Yeah so I mean I thought that was really fun though but yeah. Definitely exciting stuff. Is it a place that people I mean I know all the ghost hunting shows and all that though they're often do other people like tour it or is it loud shut down or. So it's open to the public you can like I kind of peaked around on the website it looks like you can go and reserve a time. You could either do a day tour where you walk through or you could do a night tour where it's completely dark and you can have a flashlight and have a good time. I would not do that personally me myself and I but some people are braver than me. Yeah I've never done a flashlight tour anywhere but I mean I feel like fun if you were with a group I would not want to do it by myself but the way people would always be trying to scare each other and that would bother me too. Yeah and I think about it too because like this building specifically is like really old and there's no electricity and it's like you know graffiti is everywhere and it's like just a creepy looking building because they didn't really keep it up. So to me I'm like that's scarier to me than like if I was walking through like the Winchester house. Yeah that's my organizing clean and well organized. Organized you know. So yeah I don't know I think I might do a day tour if I ever go to wait really but I don't know when I'm ever going to be in Kentucky to be completely honest so. Yeah I don't either. I it's so funny I don't know anybody in Kentucky I don't think I've ever known anybody that lived in Kentucky. You and I did meet somebody from Kentucky when we walked the Camino. We did but we didn't get his number. His name was Raymond and he owned a library. Yeah he was like a chiropractor but also on a winery on his property that you lived on. And he lives in a dry county I remember that. Yeah but he was very nice Raymond if you're out there hello but yeah I think he's the only person I've ever met that lived in Kentucky. Yeah I mean I haven't met Christina but that's why we drink but I know she technically lives in Kentucky even though she's from Cincinnati because it's like right on the border. You know it actually so I've been to Kentucky for like four hours or something. Oh my gosh I totally forgot that I've been to Kentucky. You know why I think that is your godmother. I went to see her and she lives in Indianapolis. She wanted to go to this aquarium that's like right across the border in Kentucky. Oh and it was like I think it was like a two hour drive from her place I don't really remember this was years ago but we did we drove across the border we went to the aquarium. And then there was some grocery store she wanted to go to and anybody that's from there is going to be mad at me for getting this wrong but it was some kind of like jungle gyms or I don't know they were like monkeys. But they had like a huge weird like beer and wine selection and yeah I mean it was like a really awesome place like but I guess it's like a thing. You know it's like a thing to see so your godmother really wanted to go see this store and really wanted to go to the aquarium so we did both. And your godmother is somebody who is afraid of everything but they did have a shark walk where you would walk I mean it was totally netted and there was no way you were going to fall into the tank but you walked over a shark tank. And yeah she did that and I was very proud of her because she's a big magic. And then there's absolutely all and you're like totally netted all around you. But yeah but she did that so I was very proud of her. Yeah she's afraid of the nightmare before Christmas so. She's afraid of everything. Whereas I will like jump out of an airplane or you know whatever the things are. But yeah she I was proud of her for doing it because I know it was a big deal for her she had a hard time at the end that like. And I'm like you would think when you get to the end and you're about to step off you'd be like thank god and like I'm fine. But yeah she was freaking out more I think towards the end it was weird. It was just very built up. Yeah I was going to say she probably psyched herself up like really really hard or something. But yeah it happened to Kentucky I just forgot. Well it was for a couple of hours. I mean good for you going to Kentucky I've never been to Kentucky and I don't know if I'll ever be a mobile you know you never know. But if we're there mom we should go check out we really what do you think. Yeah well I want to check out everything so you know anytime or anywhere we should look up what could we check out. That's true that's true I actually have been scoping out some haunted locations around Boston recently. Because now that I'm going to have a car here I intend to drive places. I got a few months before you're going to have a car but it'll be great once you. Oh yeah that's true I'm definitely getting my steps in every day I'm walking way too much but that's okay. A little electromone is gathering lots of dust and pollen on sitting on the street. But I will make sure I get her washed before your visit to come pick her up. Wonderful sounds great. Well if there's not anything else I guess we can do some quick housekeeping. Again friends thank you for being patient with us I know I need to update the Instagram and do a lot of things so we're going to do that. But if you want to check out our Instagram is that what the L pod you can also email us at what the L pod at do you mail.com if you have any topic suggestions. We have a lovely patreon that you can subscribe to and we do bonus episodes on their monthly. And outside of that I think just keeping an awesome like subscribe listen to all the things drink some water have a pint enjoy your life. But we appreciate you friend. Yeah I appreciate you I'm happy to see your smiling face ballana. I appreciate you too mama. Alright bye friends. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]