Haunted Houses & Ghost Tours in Nashville, TN

The history

Nashville's haunted sites carry dates a researcher can check. The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's home in the Hermitage neighborhood, was built between 1819 and 1821 and is preserved today almost as it was in Jackson's day, with almost all its original furnishings, including wallpaper dating to the early 1800s. Jackson bought the property as a rising 37-year-old lawyer-politician, retired there in 1837 at the age of 70, visited his wife Rachel's grave every day, and died there on June 8, 1845; he is buried beside Rachel in the garden, in the limestone tomb he had made for them.

Across the Cumberland River to the north, near present-day Madison and Goodlettsville, construction began in 1892 on a mansion of more than 24,000 square feet built by Nashville lawyer Isaac Ketchum on his family's farm, along what is now Dickerson Pike. What remains of that estate — after commercial development of the plantation beginning in 1951 — still stands, and now houses a haunted attraction. The attraction's own history page is the source for its account of the property, including the claim that many records were lost, some say intentionally, in the 1920s; that caveat is part of the record and is kept visible in the Beast House story below.

The third strand is younger: Devil's Dungeon, a haunted house that first opened in 2000 and has run for over 25 years under the same family — Middle Tennessee haunt history, documented on its operator's own history page.

The legend

The Hermitage legend centres on Jackson himself. Local lore says he never truly left — that he prowls the grounds or rides them, keeping watch over the home he chose to be buried at. The foundational account is dated 1893, and it survives in detail: two members of the Ladies Hermitage Association, camping overnight in the house while it was being preserved, were woken by a loud clattering as though someone were tossing pots and pans in the kitchen, chains clanking on the porch, and the pounding of a horse charging up and down the upstairs hallways. When they lit a kerosene lamp, the sounds stopped abruptly — and the same thing happened the next night, continuing until a full-time caretaker was hired. Some believe, the account says, that the ghost was Jackson himself, unable to rest until his home was restored. It is a reported account from 1893, retold as lore ever since, and labelled as such here.

At the Ketchum estate, the attraction's own history page reports what Starlite Club employees and patrons said they witnessed across that venue's decades: people in Victorian attire pacing the hallways, children's cries echoing from the bedrooms, and objects shattering without explanation. Reports, attributed to the business's page — which is also the source for the underlying 1899 story, and which acknowledges its own documentary gaps.

Haunted today

Hountix lists 12 places in Nashville, TN. Seasonal attractions keep their own open dates, so check each business's own site before you go.

• BEAST HOUSE — scream park, 3976 Dickerson Pike, Nashville, TN 37207
• Devil's Dungeon — haunted house, 510 Davidson St, Nashville, TN 37213
• Ghost Tours at The Hermitage — ghost tour, 231 6th Ave N, Nashville, TN 37219
• Ghosts of Nashville Haunted History Tours — ghost tour, NCC, 511 Union St, Nashville, TN 37219
• Nashville Ghosts: Ghost Tours & Haunted Pub Crawls — ghost tour, 4235 Hillsboro Pike #300, Nashville, TN 37215
• Nashville Tours - Ghost Tours, Speakeasy Tours, and Bus Tours — ghost tour, 604 Dr. M.L.K. Jr Blvd, Nashville, TN 37219
• Nightly Spirits - Ghost Tours & Pub Crawls — ghost tour, 104 Rep. John Lewis Way S, Nashville, TN 37203
• Rigor Mortis Haunted House — haunted house, 502 W Thompson Ln, Nashville, TN 37211
• Ryman Auditorium — haunted place, 116 Rep. John Lewis Way N, Nashville, TN 37219
• Tennessee State Capitol — haunted place, Nashville, TN (street address not in source)
• The Hermitage — haunted place, Nashville, TN (street address not in source)
• Union Station Hotel — haunted place, Nashville, TN (street address not in source)

Devil's Dungeon

Devil's Dungeon is Nashville's longevity story in the modern haunt business, and unusually, the source for it is the operator's own history page — "History of Haunting," published by Slashville Haunts and. It states the facts plainly: Devil's Dungeon "stands as the longest-running" of Slashville's attractions, "having first opened its blood-curdling doors in 2000," and the company has haunted Middle Tennessee for over 25 years. A quarter-century later, the page says, the attraction has become "a cornerstone of Nashville's horror scene."

The same page documents the people: Devil's Dungeon is family owned and operated, led by father-son duo Tony and Patrick Warner, with — in the page's words — over 50 years of combined hands-on experience in the haunt industry between them. What began as a shared vision, the page says, grew into the attraction as the Warners continue to produce it year after year. That is real, checkable-in-principle business history: an opening year, a family, a track record. No ghost is attached to the building in the operator's history, and this story attaches none — the haunting at Devil's Dungeon is the manufactured kind, sets and technology and a maze of terror, and the operator's own copy sells it in exactly those terms ("grotesque monsters lurk around every corner… state-of-the-art technology pulses through every shadowy hallway").

For Hountix, the honest pitch is the record itself: a haunted house that opened in 2000 and is still scaring Nashville under the same family a quarter-century on is a rarity in an industry of pop-ups. Current season dates and tickets are on the operator's site; the history above is the operator's own account, attributed to it.

BEAST HOUSE

As the page tells it: Nashville lawyer Isaac Ketchum began construction in 1892 on a 24,000-plus-square-foot estate on his family's farm north of Nashville, lived there as a senior law-firm member and civic figure — and on July 2nd, 1899, set his barn on fire and hanged himself in it. After a subsequent investigation, the page says, Ketchum was officially credited with the murders of his family members that night, aged 3 to 56, inside the mansion. (The surname spelling varies — Kechem/Ketchum — across sources; the page's body text uses "Ketchum," followed here.) The estate then sat in ruins, was reduced by a suspicious 1927 fire to a fraction of itself, and in 1952 was restored in part as the Starlite Dinner Club — a country-music venue for over 60 years, whose employees, the page reports, witnessed Victorian figures in the halls, children's cries, and objects shattering unexplained, before the club closed in 2014 and the property was sold in 2017 and transformed into the attraction.

Every load-bearing claim in that paragraph comes from the business's own history page, and it is published here as exactly that — one source, self-interested, with acknowledged gaps in the record. What is solidly documented is the frame: a 19th-century estate on Dickerson Pike, a long-running music club, and a haunt now operating in what remains of the house, original burnt-out fireplaces and all.

Ghost Tours at The Hermitage

The story the tour trades in is Nashville's most dignified ghost legend. Jackson loved the place in documented fact — he retired there in 1837, visited Rachel's grave daily, kept her portrait where it was the first and last thing he saw each day, and died there on June 8, 1845, to be buried beside her in the garden tomb he had built. The lore says he stayed. "Many people don't think that he has ever truly left," a Hermitage tour guide is quoted as saying in the cruise-press account that retells the haunting; tales persist that Jackson prowls the grounds, or rides them.

The account's centrepiece is the 1893 story. Two Ladies Hermitage Association members, camping in the house during its preservation because a young housekeeper would not stay after dark, locked up and settled on a mattress in the front parlor — and were woken, two nights running, by pots and pans clattering in the kitchen, chains clanking on the porch, and a horse pounding up and down the upstairs hallways, all stopping the instant they lit a lamp. Some believed it was Jackson, restless until his home was restored. That is a dated, attributed piece of 19th-century lore — the best kind a ghost tour can offer, and presented here as lore, not evidence. The house, the tomb and the furnishings are real; the General's patrol is the story Nashville tells about them.

Sources

• Slashville Haunts — "History of Haunting — Devil's Dungeon" — https://slashvillehaunts.com/history-of-haunting/ (fetched 2026-10-22)
• BEAST HOUSE — "History — Beast House" — https://beasthouse.com/beast-house-history-isaac-kechem-mansion-starlite-club/ (fetched 2026-10-22)
• The Hermitage — https://thehermitage.com/the-hermitage-enslaved-a-wagon-tour
• All Things Cruise — "Visiting Nashville: Andrew Jackson said to still walk the grounds of The Hermitage" — https://allthingscruise.com/visiting-nashville-andrew-jackson-said-to-still-walk-the-grounds-of-the-hermitage/ (fetched 2026-10-22)