Two Rivers Mansion

Metro Nashville’s parks department owns this Italianate house in Donelson and runs it as a historic site and rental venue. The name comes from its position between the Stones and Cumberland rivers.

Construction began in 1859 for David H. McGavock and Willie Elizabeth Harding, and the house was not finished until the 1870s.

The McGavock family held the property for 3 generations. Metro Nashville bought it from Mary Louise Bransford McGavock in 1965, and it now adjoins Two Rivers Park and golf course.

The National Register of Historic Places added the house on February 23, 1972, under reference number 72001238.

Staff name the house’s best-known presence as Mary Louise McGavock, in a white dress, blamed for flickering lights. Events manager Laura Carrillo says its chandelier prisms rattle “like someone had struck it.”

Ghost tour operators say Union and Confederate dead were buried on the grounds when Nashville’s cemeteries filled, part of that ground now under the golf course. No public record we found backs it.

Guided tours run Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings from June through October. Friends of Two Rivers also rents the mansion, the 1802 House, and the grounds to paranormal investigators at $200 an hour.