Peabody-Whitehead Mansion

A three-story brick mansion designed in 1889 by architect Frank Edbrooke for battlefield surgeon Dr. William Riddick Whitehead. In 1903-1904, it served as the Governor's residence for James Hamilton Peabody. Often called the most haunted mansion in Colorado, with an estimated 12 spirits.

In 1889, Dr. William Riddick Whitehead commissioned architect Frank Edbrooke -- the same man who designed the Brown Palace Hotel -- to build a home at 1128 Grant Street in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood. The six-thousand-square-foot mansion cost fifteen thousand dollars and was built in the style of an English country house with massive masonry walls, steeply pitched roofs, and a generous porch. Dr. Whitehead was a decorated war surgeon who had served in the Russian army during the Crimean War, losing many of his patients to battlefield injuries. He later practiced at the Arapahoe County Hospital in Denver before retiring to the mansion, where he died peacefully in 1902. After Whitehead's death, the house was purchased by James Hamilton Peabody, who served as Colorado's governor from 1903 to 1905 -- a controversial tenure marked by his violent suppression of miner strikes.

The paranormal activity is believed to have roots in Dr. Whitehead's military past. Witnesses have reported seeing translucent figures dressed in Russian army uniforms lurking through the mansion. Ghost hunters theorize that the spirits of soldiers who died under Whitehead's care followed him from the battlefields to Denver, taking root in his home out of gratitude or resentment that he could not save their lives. But the soldiers are only the beginning. Paranormal investigators estimate that at least twelve distinct spirits inhabit the building.

When the mansion operated as a bar and restaurant in the 1960s and 1970s, the activity reached a fever pitch. Kitchen equipment and furniture were frequently thrown across rooms by an unseen force. Silverware flew through the air multiple times daily. Glasses sitting untouched on the bar would shatter spontaneously. A chandelier that had been completely disconnected from all electrical sources continued to flicker and glow for decades, a phenomenon no electrician could explain. Service bells and phones that were no longer connected to any wiring would ring on their own. The unexplainable cries of a baby echoed through the building, heard by staff and patrons alike though no infant was ever found. Books launched themselves off shelves.

Among the named spirits, a ghost called Ella -- sometimes identified as Eloise -- haunts the second floor. Staff from the restaurant era reported that she would flirt with attractive male patrons and pinch waitresses she apparently did not like. A crotchety old man has been encountered on the third floor near where the bar once stood. A female waitress who committed suicide in the basement is said to linger there still. A woman who died inside the mansion while waiting for a fiance who never came has been seen peering mournfully from the upper windows. An unidentified young boy is associated with the chandelier that refuses to stay dark.

The mansion's history took an even darker turn when, in the 1970s, two construction workers reportedly abducted and murdered a young girl inside the then-abandoned house, with local legends claiming her body was buried beneath the foundation. The building has appeared on the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, drawing paranormal investigators and enthusiasts. After decades of standing abandoned and boarded up behind protective fencing, the mansion underwent a three-million-dollar renovation and reopened in 2025 as residential apartments -- though the twelve spirits, presumably, were not consulted about the new tenants.