To residents of Macon, Hay House may spark the words “Palace of the South,” as it’s a term of affection the house has earned due to its decades-long reign as one of the most intricate and expensive houses in Macon.

According to the house’s website, Hay House was built from 1855 to 1859 by William Butler Johnston, who’d just returned from a three-year tour of Europe’s vastly different cities and countryside. The house’s architecture reflects that, with an intricate design largely reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance Revival style. 

But maybe the most prominent part of the house’s beauty is its features, one of the most technologically advanced for its time. According to the Hay House website, the house stands at an impressive four floors, with separate living quarters for the summer and winter months, and a two-story copula. Amenities such as hot and cold running water, central heat, gas lighting, a speaker-tube system, an in-house kitchen, and an elaborate ventilation system made the house incredibly impressive given its time of construction. What adds to the beauty of the house are the several art pieces adorning the 30-foot walls in the family’s art gallery, a living piece of creative history. 

The house is rich in both money and history, as it was passed through three separate families during its time of construction. The owner’s daughter, Mary Ellen, eventually married a man by the name of William H Felton, who became the owner of the house and begin some renovations on the house After the couple’s death, the house landed in the hands of the final owner, Park Lee Hay, of which the house would get their eventual name. He prioritized modernizing the house to appropriately reflect a changing America, now in its roaring beginnings of the twentieth century. 

The over-decade-long reign of the home’s families would finally come to a close when Ms. Hay passed, after which the house was turned into a private museum. But that wasn’t the end of transitions, as in 1974, Hay House was declared a national landmark.

At that point in history emerged a series of odd happenings and urban legends that would soon begin to surround the legends of the house. Some of this may be pointed to the house’s grand nature and old age, as it paints the perfect setting of the typical “haunted house”, as some Macon residents believe.

“You watch stories of haunted houses where you’ll hear like, a creek in the floor or the door open. Basically, it’s just the house falling apart, and they’ll just assume that’s the ghost,” said McCale Lawrence, Macon resident. 

Alongside this, with the house being visited by servants, friends, families, party-goers, and many others, it becomes easy to see how stories can be made about those who have passed through. In fact, some popular legends claim that daughter Mary Ellen Felton can be seen roaming the halls, or rummaging through a chest in the bedroom.

Of course, these rumors have been vehemently denied by the director of the house Katey Brown, who also does not allow any research for paranormal purposes. However, such strong denial of the house’s more spooky elements has only worked to amp up rumors about the house’s hauntings. Because no recording or videography is allowed in the house’s tours, believers in the spooky sides of Hay House have to rely on their personal experiences and witness testimonies for proof. 

A member of the Hay House’s board Darin McClure stated in an interview with WMAZ that in 30 years of working there, he hasn’t had a single experience in the house where something unexplainable hasn’t happened. His testimony, alongside other Macon residents, proves that some believe in the very real possibility of Macon having spiritually-active sites such as Hay House.

“I don’t know if ghosts is a term I’d use, but there’s a lot of spiritual forces in this world,” says Macon resident Annie Smith. “I believe about 70% of people believe in ghosts.”

Despite the denial of the supernatural, there have been several reports of flickering lights, unexplained voices, and things opening and shutting without explanation. Whether the story is a hoax or a haunt is still up for debate, but one thing remains clear … the continued lore behind the Hay House has continued to make it infamous for its eerily unexplained occurrences and chilling testimonies. 

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