Mayslake Peabody Estate

Coal magnate Francis Stuyvesant Peabody built this Tudor Gothic mansion between 1919 and 1922, naming the estate Mayslake after his late first wife and daughter, both named May. He died of a heart attack in 1922, just a year after its completion, and his family soon moved out; the Franciscan Order purchased the property in 1924. Visitors and staff report apparitions and unexplained cold spots throughout the mansion, mysterious piano music heard in the sunroom overlooking the lake, and the sensation of an invisible hand touching their face. A popular local legend claims Peabody's body was preserved in a glass casket filled with oil somewhere on the grounds — a widely repeated story with no basis in fact.