Two Rivers Mansion

An 1859 Italianate mansion named for its site between the Stones and Cumberland rivers. Metro Nashville owns it now, running tours and event rentals beside Two Rivers Park in Donelson.

Construction began in 1859 for David McGavock and Willie Elizabeth Harding and ran into the 1870s. The mansion joined the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1972.

3 generations of McGavocks held the land until 1965, when the city bought the estate from Mary Louise Bransford McGavock, the last of the family to live here. Remember the name.

The mansion reopened after a restoration of nearly 2 years led by the Friends of Two Rivers with Metro Parks, and the guided-tour season has since been extended into fall.

Staff name the white-dress figure as Mary Louise McGavock, blamed for flickering lights, running water, and unscrewed lightbulbs. Events manager Laura Carrillo describes the chandelier’s prisms rattling “like someone had struck it.”

Visitors report a fast-moving Lady in Black darting through the mansion and gliding across the adjacent golf course. The accounts agree on one point: she vanishes the moment anyone gets close.

Staff and grounds crew report a dog on the property, and guests describe one too. The guests are only told afterward that no dogs are kept at Two Rivers.

Tour operators claim the estate took in Union and Confederate dead when wartime Nashville’s cemeteries overflowed, with part of the burial ground under today’s golf course. No archive or press record confirms it.

Spirit of Two Rivers tours run 3 mornings a week, June to October, with After Dark tours in mid-October. Renting the property for your own paranormal investigation costs $200 an hour, insurance required.