The Octagon House: Washington's Most Haunted House, Its History and Ghosts

The Octagon stands on the corner of New York Avenue and 18th Street NW, two blocks west of the White House. Built for one of the richest planters in Virginia, it housed the president of the United States after the British burned the White House, and for more than a century it has been the headquarters, then the museum, of the American Institute of Architects.

It also has the oldest and richest collection of ghost stories of any house in the city: bells that ring by themselves, Dolley Madison’s receptions, a gambler shot at the card table, and two daughters of the house said to have died on its spiral staircase. Some of these stories go back to the 1870s. One of the most famous, the story of the daughters, can be checked against the family’s records, and it does not hold up.

History of the Octagon House

John Tayloe III, described as the wealthiest planter of his day, paid $1,000 in 1797 for a corner lot in the new federal city, reportedly at George Washington’s urging. William Thornton, the first architect of the Capitol, designed him a brick house trimmed with Aquia Creek sandstone, whose plan combines a circle, two rectangles and a triangle to fit the odd-angled corner. Nobody knows for certain why it has always been called the Octagon; it has six sides, not eight.

The Tayloes had 15 children, 13 of whom lived to adulthood. They used the house as a winter home at first, then lived here year-round from 1818 to 1855; John Tayloe died here in 1828 and his widow Ann in 1855. The family enslaved hundreds of people across their plantations, and between 12 and 18 of them lived and worked at the Octagon, in quarters in the kitchen and stable buildings, summoned by a system of call bells.

After the British burned the White House on August 24, 1814, the Tayloes rented the Octagon to James and Dolley Madison, who moved in on September 8, 1814, and stayed about six months for $500. On February 17, 1815, in the upstairs study, Madison ratified the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812.

The American Institute of Architects rented it from 1898 and bought it in 1902, using it as its headquarters until the 1960s. It opened as a museum in 1970, was restored to its 1817 to 1818 appearance in the early 1990s, and after a closure from 2007 to 2013 is run today by the Architects Foundation.

The ghosts of the Octagon House

The bells that ring by themselves

The oldest Octagon story, believed to date from the mid-1800s, is that the house’s servants’ bells would ring all at once, with no one pulling them. Mary Clemmer Ames told a version in her 1874 book about Washington, in which bells rang in front of dinner guests, and Marian Gouverneur’s 1911 book has a similar tale involving General George D. Ramsay. The bells were eventually removed, but the story is still told.

Many retellings link the bells to the enslaved people who answered them, and to a legend that a young enslaved girl was killed in the house during the War of 1812. We found no record of that death. What is documented is that between 12 and 18 enslaved people lived and worked here, and the museum now tells their story.

Dolley Madison

Dolley Madison, the city’s great hostess, is said to return to the house where she entertained in 1814 and 1815, announced by a scent of lilacs, and to hold receptions near the ballroom fireplace. The Washington Times printed this story in 1902. It is the gentlest of the Octagon’s ghosts, and the same Dolley is said to appear at the White House and at her later home on Lafayette Square.

The Tayloe daughters: a legend the records contradict

The most repeated story says two of John Tayloe’s daughters died on the spiral staircase, one after a quarrel with her father over a suitor, and that they haunt the second and third floor landings. It first appeared in a 1908 newspaper article.

The family records say otherwise. One Tayloe daughter died as an infant in 1800, before the family lived here. Rebecca died in 1815 at Mount Airy, the family’s Virginia plantation, and Elizabeth died in Washington in 1832, but not at the Octagon. None of the Tayloe children died in the house. Visitors still report cold spots and an uneasy feeling on the staircase, but the story behind them is a legend.

The gambler, the soldier and the night watch

A 1912 newspaper story told of a gambler shot dead at a card table and still seen in the room where he fell. In the late 1940s a doctor reported meeting a man in early 1800s military dress inside the house. And in 1888 a newspaper printed a first-hand account of twelve men who spent a night in the Octagon to test the stories. Other reports speak of rustling silk, footsteps and doors that open and close.

In 2018 a WTOP reporter spent a night at the Octagon and Decatur House. The only disturbance he recorded was rats.

Where to look

• The oval spiral staircase: the heart of the house and the setting for the daughters legend; visitors report cold spots on the landings.
• The second floor study: the upstairs study where Madison ratified the Treaty of Ghent in 1815.
• The third floor bedroom: named in older accounts as one of the most active rooms.
• The ballroom fireplace: where Dolley Madison’s receptions are said to resume.
• The garden: behind the house, where some retellings place the sounds of enslaved people; ask museum staff about the service buildings that stood here.

Visiting the Octagon House

The Octagon is a small house museum run by the Architects Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American Institute of Architects. Opening is limited: recently it has opened on Fridays and on the first and third Saturdays of the month, 11 AM to 4 PM. Check the foundation’s website before you go, as hours change and the house sometimes closes for events.

Inside you can see the oval staircase, the restored dining and drawing rooms and the study where Madison signed the treaty. The house does not run ghost hunts, but Halloween walks have used it in past years, and evening ghost walks of the Lafayette Square area often stop outside.

• Visiting Small museum with limited opening days
• Tours Self-guided museum visits; Halloween walks have run here in past years
• Hours and season Recently Fridays and the first and third Saturdays, 11 AM to 4 PM; check before visiting
• Tickets See the museum website
• Ghost hunting No public paranormal investigations offered

Tips for your visit

• Plan around the limited opening days; it is easy to arrive on a Tuesday and find it closed.
• Come at the end of the day for the atmosphere: the curved front is floodlit after dark.
• Ask staff about the call bells and the service buildings; the real story of the people who answered them is more moving than any ghost tale.
• Combine the visit with the White House and Decatur House, a ten-minute walk east.

More haunted places nearby

• The White House ghosts: two blocks east, where the Madisons lived before the fire
• Decatur House and Lafayette Square: the haunted houses around the square
• Haunted hotels in Washington, D.C.: for a haunted place to stay
• Haunted places in Washington, D.C.

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.

• Wikipedia: The Octagon House
• WTOP: Haunted DC, are the dead alive in Lafayette Square? (2018)
• GW Today: The true(-ish) stories behind D.C.'s famous ghosts (2022)
• DC History Center: Spooky Washington, DC (2023)
• Library of Congress, Headlines and Heroes: The haunted houses of Washington (2020)
• Wikipedia: Reportedly haunted locations in Washington, D.C.
• Washingtonian: Haunted houses and ghost tours for Halloween (2015)
• Architects Foundation: The Octagon Museum