The Kehoe House

The Kehoe House at 123 Habersham Street in Savannah, built in 1892 for iron magnate William Kehoe and his ten children, is haunted primarily in Rooms 201 and 203 where guests find warm indentations on their beds and feel phantom hands on their faces. At least one Kehoe child died of fever in the house, and the building later served as the Goette Funeral Home with embalming rooms in the basement.

A couple staying in Room 201 woke up in the middle of the night. The wife felt small hands stroking her hair and cheek. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the face of a little boy, inches away. Then he was gone.

The Kehoe House sits at 123 Habersham Street on Columbia Square, a Queen Anne mansion with soaring turrets that William Kehoe completed in May 1892. Kehoe had immigrated from County Wexford, Ireland in 1842 at age ten, eventually buying his own iron foundry east of Broughton Street and becoming one of Savannah's wealthiest businessmen. He and his wife raised ten children in the house.

The most famous story about the Kehoe children involves twins getting trapped in a chimney during a game of hide-and-seek. According to the legend, Mrs. Kehoe came home to find two children missing, and rescuers eventually discovered them dead inside the chimney flue. Every ghost tour in Savannah tells this version.

It almost certainly did not happen. No historical record supports the chimney deaths. The story has been debunked thoroughly over the years. The real deaths were less dramatic but no less sad. At least one, possibly two, of the Kehoe daughters died of yellow fever or scarlet fever inside the house. The children did die here. They just did not die in the chimney.

The ghost activity centers on Rooms 201 and 203 on the second floor. In both rooms, guests have woken up to find someone sitting on their bed. The indentation is visible. The spot is warm. No one is there. In Room 203, guests describe a gentle female presence that sits beside them while they sleep. She does not seem hostile. She seems like she is checking on them.

Beyond the bedrooms, guests hear children laughing and playing in the hallways. The scent of old perfume drifts through rooms with no source. People feel a hand on their head or an arm being gently grabbed while they sleep. Ghost City Tours identifies two spirits by name: Emma and Edward, twin figures who are most active during afternoon tea time.

The house went through several lives after the Kehoe family. They sold it in 1930, and it became a boarding house, then the Goette Funeral Home. The basement housed the embalming equipment and preparation rooms. That is two layers of death in one building: children dying upstairs of fever, and bodies being prepared for burial in the basement decades later.

Mrs. Kehoe's ghost seems to be one of the presences. Staff and guests have noticed that she responds to flower arrangements and expressions of gratitude, as though she is still playing hostess. She was known in life as a loving mother who made visitors feel welcome and safe. The Kehoe House activity feels more like hospitality than haunting.

The house operates as a luxury bed and breakfast now. You can book Room 201 or Room 203 if you want to test it yourself. Guests who report nothing outnumber guests who report something. But the ones who wake up to small hands on their faces tend to remember the stay.