public

Heavily Investigated

Step into the front parlor and the portraits watch you — every one of them. Visitors have long reported a female presence here, a ghost they call Miss Daisy, drifting through the parlor as though the Irwins never left. Shadowy figures haunt the halls, a tail-coated male apparition drifts the upper rooms, and disembodied voices surface in corners that should be empty. Four members of the Irwin family died inside these walls — and some say the house absorbed every last one of them.

Built in 1833 by brick mason and cotton factor James W. Roper, Oakleigh was plagued by misfortune before its walls were even dry — Roper lost his first wife and a child during construction, then lost the house itself to debt. The Irwin family purchased it in 1852 and, rather impressively, didn't leave until 1960. Four Irwins died inside. The home is now the centerpiece of the Oakleigh Historic Complex and operates as a museum — curating over 1,000 artifacts, including a wreath woven from human hair, because of course it does.