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Nashville buildings that belong in a Halloween movie

Uncover ghoulish architecture features that make a place look haunted and find out where to see a few around town.

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The Miles House is located across from East Park. | Photo by Brent Moore via Flickr

So what makes a haunted house look haunted?

We went down to the architectural crypt to find out what design features make a building go bump in the night.

There are a few obvious styles that tingle your spine and widen your eyes, namely Victorian-era and Gothic Revival. To keep this scary story short, we’ve created a checklist with some skeleton key characteristics to look for.

Haunted house checklist:

With this list in mind, let’s step through the creaky front doors of these three buildings in Nashville. Watch your head for cobwebs.

Miles House

This two-level brick house in the Edgefield Historic District has a storied past. It survived the East Nashville fire of 1916, served as the Nashville Female Seminary (1870-1879), and was lived in at various times by riverboat captain J.W. Lovell and by the family of retired Circuit Judge Roy A. Miles. Though it sustained fire damage in 1977, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places and now houses a law firm.

A exterior view of the Customs House in downtown Nashville, built in an American Victorian Gothic style.

Downtown’s Customs House is located at 701 Broadway. | Photo by Antony-22 via Wikimedia Commons

Customs House

Built in the late 1800s in the Victorian Gothic style, the Customs House was used as a post office and held area offices for the Treasury and Justice Departments. Although it’s undergone multiple renovations, its distinctive Gothic lancet windows and triple-arch entrance remain. Today, a private firm leases office space inside.

The interior of Nashville’s Omohundro Water Treatment Plant with tile flooring and arched brick galleries.

Metro Water Services occasionally offers tours of the Omohundro plant and other locations. | Photo via Metro Nashville

Omohundro Water Treatment Plant

There’s nothing scary about Nashville’s drinking water (Metro Water earned a “perfect score” on its latest report), but the 1929 plant’s arched brick galleries and terrazzo tile floor laid in a diamond pattern would steal the scene in any ghostly movie — if it weren’t supplying a vital resource, of course. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

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