Hay House

The keeper of the Confederate Treasury built this 18,000-square-foot Italian Renaissance mansion in Macon with a secret room that held Confederate gold. His daughter Mary Ellen Felton, who lived here from childhood until her death in 1926, is seen rearranging drawers and wandering the hallways by staff and visitors.

Confederate gold sat in a hidden room inside this staircase. The largest reserve south of Richmond, held by William Butler Johnston, keeper of the Confederate Treasury, in an 18,000-square-foot Italian Renaissance mansion in Macon, Georgia. The room was sealed and forgotten until renovations uncovered it decades later.

Johnston and his wife Anne spent three and a half years honeymooning across Europe, from 1852 to 1855, visiting hundreds of museums and art studios. They came home and built a house that had no business existing in antebellum Georgia. Italian craftsmen supervised by local master builder James B. Ayers created a 24-room mansion with hot and cold running water, central heating, a ventilation system, speaking tubes connecting fifteen rooms, and a French lift. Italian Carrara marble fireplaces. Trompe l'oeil finishes. A music room with a 30-foot clerestory ceiling and plasterwork covered in 24-karat gold leaf. Johnston made his money in banking, railroads, and public utilities rather than cotton. He spent it like someone who had seen Florence and wanted a piece of it on Georgia Avenue.

The house sits on Coleman Hill in Macon's historic district. It dominates the block. Four floors, symmetrical red brick facade, arched windows, a grand entrance portico, and 15-foot ceilings throughout. The National Park Service designated it a National Historic Landmark in 1974.

Three families lived here over a century. Johnston built it. His youngest daughter Mary Ellen married Judge William H. Felton, and they occupied the house until both died in 1926. The Hay family, led by Parks Lee Hay of Banker's Health and Life Insurance Company, moved in during the 1920s and stayed until the 1960s. The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation has run it as a museum since 1977.

The ghost most often seen is an elderly woman in period dress wandering the hallways. Staff believe it's Mary Ellen Felton. She lived in the house longer than anyone, from childhood through her death. A board member witnessed her going through a chest of drawers on the second floor. This isn't a one-time event. Staff lock up at closing, everything in order. They arrive in the morning to find drawers pulled open, contents shifted around. No break-ins, no logical explanation. It just keeps happening.

Contractors working on renovations have had tools slide across the floor or vanish entirely, only to turn up in a different room. During a 2010 paranormal investigation, a team claimed to have captured a full-bodied figure on camera and recorded audio they couldn't account for. Visitors describe cold pockets in specific rooms and voices from empty hallways.

The Hay House launched its 'Haunts and History on the Hill' tours in October 2016. Running water, an elevator, an intercom system, Italian marble, Confederate gold in a secret room. The Johnstons built something in 1859 that most American homes wouldn't have for another fifty years. Mary Ellen grew up in it, raised her family in it, died in it, and apparently decided the chest of drawers still needed organizing.