Haunted places guide · Huntersville, North Carolina

Latta Place (Latta Plantation), Huntersville: History, Ghosts and Reopening

A Federal-style house of about 1800 beside Mountain Island Lake, long known as one of the Charlotte area’s most haunted places. Today it is closed, being rebuilt to tell the whole story of the land, including the people enslaved there.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate places

2.8/5Haunted Rooms Score

c. 1800House built

2027Expected reopening

Our nearest ghost hunt: Battleship North CarolinaMeet the ghosts

Latta Place, still better known to many people as Latta Plantation, sits on a quiet bend of the Catawba River at Mountain Island Lake, in north Mecklenburg County, about six miles from Huntersville. For decades it was a living history farm where school groups churned butter, reenactors staged battles and staff in period dress showed visitors through a house that had changed remarkably little in two centuries.

It also earned a reputation as one of the most haunted places around Charlotte. Guides and volunteers told of children laughing in a bare attic, a family cane that would not stay still and shadow figures crossing the grounds, and the site ran its own candlelit ghost tours. This guide covers the real history first, then the stories, and finally what you can and cannot do there now: the site has been closed since June 2021 and Mecklenburg County expects to reopen it in 2027.

History of Latta Place

James Latta was born in 1755 and came to America from Ireland in 1785. He made his living as a traveling merchant, selling goods from a Conestoga wagon across York, Mecklenburg, Lincoln and Rowan counties, and he opened a store in Yorkville, South Carolina, that his son Robert later ran. Around 1800 he built this house on land near the Catawba River, an early Federal design with some Georgian touches, including the main staircase, and a floor plan that was unusual in North Carolina at the time.

Latta built the property into one of the largest antebellum plantations in Mecklenburg County, and that history includes the people he enslaved. When the house was built he owned two enslaved people, perhaps a house servant and a business assistant. As cotton took over the farm he acquired more, hired an overseer in 1825, and at his death in 1837 he enslaved at least 25 people. Some passed to his family and others were sold.

In 1819 the property was deeded to Benjamin W. Wilson and Robert Latta on condition that James and his wife Jane could keep living there to provide for their son Ezekiel, who died before his father. David Harry bought two tracts in 1841, and in 1853 William A. Sample bought the land. His son Hugh inherited the house in 1877, and the Sample family kept it until 1922, when it passed to a subsidiary of the Southern Power Company. After Southern Power merged with Duke Power in 1927, the land went to the Crescent Land and Timber Corporation, and much of it was leased to the federal government until the mid-1970s.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Mecklenburg County owns the land, and for years a nonprofit ran it as a living history museum of daily life in the antebellum Piedmont, with battle reenactments, summer camps and homeschool programs. The 1760s to 1790s Ezekiel Alexander log home was moved here from Charlotte.

In June 2021 the operator promoted a Juneteenth event centered on white residents and “white refugees” after the Confederacy’s fall, promising stories from “the massa himself.” The county, the town of Huntersville and Charlotte’s mayor condemned it, the event was cancelled, the site closed and the county ended its contract. The site was renamed Latta Place, and in October 2026 the county broke ground on an $11.2 million redevelopment with a new visitor center and an interactive trail about everyone who lived on the land, Indigenous, enslaved and landowning. Kodi Ardrey, who discovered that his own ancestors were enslaved here, was among those at the groundbreaking.

The ghosts of Latta Place

Children in the attic

The story told most often is of children playing overhead. Visitors and staff have described laughter, running footsteps, toys being moved and doors slamming in the attic, even though it is bare and, by some accounts, lacks a proper floor. There is no record of children dying in the house, so the sound is put down by storytellers to the Latta or Sample children who grew up here.

The cane that walked

During a house tour, the story goes, a docent was showing a cane that had belonged to the Latta family when it slipped from his hand and, rather than falling, stayed upright and moved across the room as if someone unseen were walking with it. It is the best-known Latta story, repeated on ghost websites for years, though no witness has been named in print.

The parlor mirror

Our earlier guide told of an employee who heard a crash from the old family parlor while adjusting the thermostat at closing time and found a heavy mirror lying face down in the middle of the floor, its glass unbroken. We have not found this story in any other published source, so treat it as staff lore.

Shadow figures on the grounds

Visitors have described shadowy, foggy figures crossing the yard and the paths around the outbuildings. Staff who shared these stories generally described the presence as calm rather than threatening, and believed it was the family who built the house.

Ghost tours with a medium

The old site leaned into its reputation. In February 2020 its “Haunted Souls Ghost Tours” sold out over Valentine’s Day and added extra dates: candlelit tours on the hour from 6 to 9 p.m. for $20, covering Victorian mourning customs and stories from current and former staff, volunteers and visitors, with a psychic medium sharing her impressions in each room. Whether the reopened site will tell ghost stories at all has not been announced, and its new focus is the full history of the land.

Where to look

• The attic: where the children’s footsteps and laughter are reported.
• The family parlor: the setting of the falling mirror story.
• The main staircase and hall: the house’s finest Georgian-style feature and the route of many tours.
• The yard and outbuildings: where shadow figures are said to cross after dusk.

Visiting Latta Place

Latta Place is closed. The historic house and its 16-acre site inside Latta Nature Preserve on Mountain Island Lake have not been open to the public since June 2021, and construction began in October 2026. The county lists the anticipated reopening as 2027, subject to change, and posts updates on its Latta Place website and public input page.

When it reopens, Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation will run the site directly rather than through an outside operator, with a new visitor center and an interpretive trail. Expect the program to put the history of the enslaved people who worked the land at its center; ghost tours are not part of the published plans.

Until then, the surrounding nature preserve is a separate park with trails along Mountain Island Lake, and the Carolina Raptor Center has long operated inside it. For haunted places you can visit now, see our Charlotte guide, and for a real after-dark investigation, the nearest Haunted Rooms ghost hunts are listed below.

• Visiting Historic site closed for redevelopment; expected to reopen in 2027
• Ghost hunting Closed; no tours or investigations until it reopens

Tips for your visit

• Check the county’s Latta Place page before you plan a trip; the reopening date may move.
• Do not try to enter the closed historic site; it is an active construction zone.
• For a haunted night out now, try Charlotte’s Uptown ghost walks or a night at the Duke Mansion.

More haunted places nearby

• Haunted places in Charlotte: Fire Station No. 4, the Carolina Theatre and more
• The Duke Mansion: a haunted inn in Myers Park where you can stay the night
• Queens University of Charlotte: Charlotte’s most haunted campus
• Haunted plantations and historic homes in North Carolina: more historic houses with ghost stories
• Haunted places in North Carolina
• Haunted places in Charlotte

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Mecklenburg County: Latta Place
• Mecklenburg County Historic Landmarks: Latta Place
• WUNC: Latta Place redevelopment begins with a new focus (October 2026)
• Wikipedia: Latta Place
• WSOC: Candlelit ghost tour at Historic Latta (2020)
• North Carolina Haunted Houses: Latta Plantation