Kehoe House, Savannah: Children's Laughter in an Adults-Only Mansion

The Kehoe House stands on the corner of Columbia Square, a four-story Renaissance Revival mansion trimmed with cast iron. William Kehoe, who ran one of Savannah’s biggest iron foundries, built it for his wife Anne and their ten children, and it shows: the stairways, columns, window treatments, fences and gates are iron rather than wood. Today it is a 13-room inn for guests aged 21 and over, with breakfast in the courtyard and wine in the parlor every evening.

It is also one of the most famous haunted inns in Savannah, and the inn’s own website covers the stories. The best-known is about the Kehoe children. Guests in second-floor rooms say they have been woken by the touch of small hands, and others hear children running and playing in the halls after hours, in an inn that does not take children.

The ghosts of The Kehoe House

The Kehoe children

The story the inn tells is that two of the Kehoe children died in the house in a careless accident and never left. Guests in two second-floor rooms report being woken by what the inn calls the loving caresses of small children, and others hear running feet and laughter in the halls late at night.

The most repeated version, told on many tours, makes the children twins who climbed into a chimney during a game of hide-and-seek and were trapped. A Savannah Morning News look at the family records found no Kehoe twins and no chimney on any death certificate: of the ten children, nine survived infancy and three others died as adults. Ghost City Tours says the chimney story has been debunked, and the inn itself only says the children’s deaths are what it has been told. So the legend does not hold up, but the reports keep coming.

William and Anne Kehoe

The inn says William and Anne themselves are among the most commonly reported apparitions, most often in Room 201 and up in the mansion’s cupola. The Savannah Morning News suggests, with a smile, that William may simply be watching over his ironwork.

Touches in the night and old perfume

Ghost City Tours collects other reports: perfume from an earlier era drifting through the hallways and bedrooms, and guests feeling a hand on their head or arm while they sleep. Older accounts, including our previous guide, add lights turning on in empty rooms, doors locked from inside, the doorbell ringing with no one there and the sense of someone sitting at the end of the bed.

The funeral parlor years

After the family sold the house, it spent decades as a boarding house and a funeral parlor. That chapter adds to the house’s reputation, though no particular ghost story is tied to it.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 201: On the second floor, and the room where William and Anne Kehoe are said to appear most often. Request it when you book direct.
• Room 203: Also on the second floor. Our earlier guide named 201 and 203 as the rooms where guests see a child appear and vanish.
• Other second-floor rooms: The floor where guests report the touch of small hands. Any room on this level puts you close to the stories.
• Balcony rooms: The house has several private and semi-private balconies over the square. Ask for one if you would rather enjoy the view than the ghosts.

History of The Kehoe House

William Kehoe came to Savannah from County Wexford, Ireland, as a boy in the 1840s with his parents. He apprenticed at an iron foundry, became its foreman and eventually owned it, later renaming it Kehoe Iron Works. He became one of the city’s leading businessmen: the Savannah Morning News lists him as founder of Chatham Savings and Loan, a director of Savannah Electric and Power, a promoter of the Tybee Railroad and a county commissioner.

In 1868 he married Anne Flood, and their first home was at 130 Habersham Street on Columbia Square. As the family grew, he bought the southern half of a lot diagonally across the square for $950 and hired architect DeWitt Bruyn. The new house cost $25,000 and was finished in May 1892, when William, Anne and their ten children moved in. He used his own trade throughout, with cast-iron stairs, columns, window details and fencing.

Anne died in 1920 and William in 1929. The family sold the house around 1930 (the inn gives that date; the Savannah Morning News says William sold it after Anne’s death). For roughly the next three decades it served as a boarding house and then a funeral parlor, and it was later owned briefly by football star Joe Namath.

Namath sold it in 1990, and after two years of restoration it opened as a bed and breakfast called the William Kehoe House. It changed hands in 2003 and was bought by HLC Hotels in 2007 as one of the Historic Inns of Savannah. It is now part of the verdigreen hotels & residences collection, alongside the Eliza Thompson House, the East Bay Inn and the Gastonian.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book direct and ask for Room 201 or 203 if you want the rooms with the most stories.
• Plan to be in the parlor from 5 to 7 pm for wine and hors d’oeuvres.
• Guests must be 21 or over, and only service animals are allowed. The sister East Bay Inn takes dogs.
• Parking is at the Lincoln Street Garage, about four minutes’ walk away, and is included in the nightly amenity fee.
• The 17Hundred90 Inn and its famous Room 204 is just around the corner, so book dinner there.
• Ghost tours pass the house most evenings, and the inn can help you book one.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Marshall House, Savannah: Savannah’s oldest hotel, a Civil War and yellow fever hospital
• Hamilton-Turner Inn, Savannah: another Victorian mansion inn, where guests hear children laughing
• More haunted hotels in Savannah: the 17Hundred90 Inn, Eliza Thompson House, Foley House Inn and more
• Francis Marion Hotel, Charleston: a haunted 1924 hotel about two hours up the coast
• Haunted hotels in Georgia
• Haunted hotels in Savannah

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• The Kehoe House: Are There Ghosts at the Kehoe House?
• The Kehoe House: History
• The Kehoe House: FAQ
• Savannah Morning News: William Kehoe, the Irish legend behind the famed ghost story
• Ghost City Tours: The Ghosts of the Haunted Kehoe House
• Wikipedia: Kehoe House
• Historic Inns of Savannah: Haunted Savannah

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