Hamilton-Turner Inn

Built in 1873, this stunning Second Empire mansion was the first home in Savannah wired for electricity. The story goes Walt Disney sketched it from a nearby bench and it inspired the Haunted Mansion.

The Hamilton-Turner Inn is a stunning Second Empire mansion built in 1873 by Samuel Pugh Hamilton, nicknamed "The Lord of Lafayette Square." A former Confederate naval officer who successfully ran Union blockades into Savannah Harbor, Hamilton made his fortune and became president of the Brush Electric Light and Power Company. His home was the first in Savannah to have electricity.

The haunted tale centers on the tragic death of a young girl during one of the Hamilton family's lavish parties. Children were sent upstairs to play, but they devised a game to spy on the adults below. They would roll billiard balls toward the grand staircase, then run after them and peek at the festivities. One night, a little girl lost her footing at the top of the stairs and tumbled all the way down, dying from her injuries.

Ever since, guests hear the unmistakable sound of billiard balls rolling down the hallway and bouncing down the stairs. Children's laughter echoes from the billiard room. In Room 402, frantic knocking awakens guests in the middle of the night as small voices cry, "Daddy, let us in!" - but the innkeeper confirms no children are staying at the inn.

A cigar-smoking man appears inside the inn and on the roof. One theory suggests he is a guard Hamilton hired to watch over his prized property. One morning, the guard was found dead on the roof, shot in the back of the head. No one would take his place after the murder, so Hamilton himself stood guard until he grew sick and died in 1899.

The Hamilton-Turner Inn is rumored to have inspired Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion, based on 1950s designs by Harper Goff. Whether or not Disney's Imagineers studied this haunted Southern mansion, the ghosts inside are very real.