The Duke Mansion

Posted: 01.06.2025 | Updated: 01.06.2025

The Duke Mansion is a sprawling Charlotte estate bursting with stories of success and progress. But within the shadowed corners of its history hides an account that tests the boundaries of true love. 

Converted into a bed and breakfast in Charlotte, NC, The Duke Mansion has lived many lives. Though many are mere pinpoints on a centuries-old timeline, others left lasting impressions on the property and community. A stay within the massive mansion gives you access to the dwelling’s fascinating stories, including a haunting ghostly legend bookended by devotion and tragedy.

Afterall, love is a powerful thing. It can start wars and fuel feuds, bring people together, or violently tear them apart. It’s an emotional anchor, something that can keep us tied to people and places throughout our lives.

Some may even say the most passionate love can transcend death. It breaks the natural laws of mortality to bind two people together for eternity.

The Duke Mansion is just one striking facet of Charlotte’s 250-plus-year history. Apparitions and ethereal entities have found their homes in many haunted houses in Charlotte. Book a Charlotte ghost tour with Charlotte Ghosts for a first-rate look into the ghostly going on around the city.

Is The Duke Mansion Haunted?

Not all haunts breed disembodied voices and meandering ghostly figures. Some are embedded in the very grain of a location, and sensitive guests feel their impact turned to the other side. The Duke Mansion has had many names attached to it. But only one, a true peculiarity in its history, has bred a widely recounted tale of ghostly woe. The heart-heavy Jon Avery may still walk the grounds, hoping his beloved may do the same in the hereafter. 

Building Lynwood in Budding Charlotte

Charlotte is a bustling city of some 900,000 people. Over 100 years ago, that number was nearly 880,000 lower, and the streets were mostly crowded with horse-drawn carriages. When the streetcar started to make its way onto Charlotte’s roadways, it drew attention to affluent figures with money to spend. 

Zebulon V. Taylor isn’t a well-known name outside of Charlotte. Even there, it’s likely most haven’t heard of him. 

Yet, Myers Peak would likely have quite a different legacy without Taylor. Arriving in the area as it slowly built up, Taylor, the then-president of Southern Public Utilities, built a home on the outskirts of the budding town. 

The structure, known as Lynwood, was about a third the size of the white mansion that sits on the property today. 

Further additions came at the hands of another figure of wealth: tobacco mogul James Buchanan Duke.

Big Tobacco and the Development of The Duke Mansion

James Buchanan Duke is mainly responsible for the popularity of tobacco products throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries. Born into a family that thrived on several crops, Duke quickly followed in his father’s footsteps. 

In the wake of the Civil War, the Duke family’s crops were left in ruins by Union soldiers. By a stroke of luck, the war significantly diminished tobacco products in the South, opening up an opportunity for the Dukes to rise again. 

By 1874, James’ father, Washington Duke, sold the remaining farms and opened a tobacco factory in Durham.    

The decades that followed proved prosperous for the Duke family. James grew the family business tenfold, leading to the industry merger of four tobacco manufacturers into the American Tobacco Company. 

The monopoly lasted for just over 20 years before the federal government forced it to split. Duke kept his seat at the head of the American Tobacco Company’s table, but by then, he set his sights elsewhere.

He was interested in hydroelectric power. His investments in developing plants eventually led to the founding of the Southern Power System in 1905. 

Years later, in 1917, that developed into the Duke Power Company. Two years from then, the businessman found a new home in Myers Park: Lynnwood. 

However, it just wasn’t big enough. Duke expanded Taylor’s estate to 32,000 square feet to accommodate his grand ideas. In the lavish halls of Duke’s dwelling, it was here that the former tobacco magnate developed Duke University, Duke Energy, and the Duke Endowment.

The Years After Duke

Duke’s legacy is the most notable one to seep into the walls of the opulent mansion, but it is far from the only one. The property’s history spans multiple owners, including Martin Cannon, who changed the home’s name to White Oaks. 

By the 1960s, Henry and Clayton Lineberger purchased the property and almost lost it to a 1966 fire. Thankfully, only the top floor was affected and promptly restored. 

After the Linebergers, Duke’s former home was divided into five condos. The final plan was to demolish the mansion and split the lot into individual single-family homes.

Before that could happen, Raycom Sports founders Rick and Dee Ray purchased the residence and restored it to one singular home.

Today, the mansion is a not-for-profit conference center with lodging and event spaces. 

Despite the many inhabitants, including the property’s original owner, James Duke proved the most recognizable to locals. Dropping “White Oak” in the ‘90s, the estate became known as The Duke Mansion.

As extensive a history as all that is, it’s not the whole picture.

The Tragic Tale of Jon Avery

If you look through all documents tied to The Duke Mansion, you’ll find references to all previously mentioned owners. Missing from them is Jon Avery, an anomaly believed to have owned the property immediately after Duke’s death. 

Jon moved in with his wife, Anastasia (and, in some versions, his mother and sister). A troubled woman, Jon was forced to permanently commit Anastasia to a mental institution, leaving him without the close bond of his beloved.

Sometime later, Jon was approached by a young woman. Why she was at The Duke Mansion changes between iterations. One claims she was responding to an ad for a room for rent. 

The other pegs her as a writer working on an article about the mansion. Regardless, Jon and the young woman, often called Maggie, grew close and developed a fast relationship. 

Jon found himself falling for the woman, and eventually, she reciprocated his feelings. 

Still devoted to Anastasia, Jon refused to leave his wife, giving Maggie one choice. Knowing she could never have Jon, she severed their relationship.

In a final meeting in the mansion’s circular garden, Jon pleaded to see her again in the same spot in exactly a year, “dead or alive.” 

She agreed and left, losing contact with Jon for the year.

Dead or Alive!

Maggie never forgot about Jon. Their affinity for one another proved more potent than the passage of time itself. However, her life had moved on. 

In the year they were apart, she got engaged. Still, she aimed to keep her promise. One year after she last saw Jon, she returned to the mansion. What she found became quickly rooted in Charlotte’s local legend. 

Jon wasn’t waiting for her in the garden as he had promised. Instead, the property was quiet, almost lifeless. There are two different endings to this story, both equally as unsettling. 

One has Maggie approached by footsteps, only to turn and find a gaunt Jon Avery approaching. When she went to touch him, her hand went through his body. Before vanishing into the ether, he mouthed the words “Dead or Alive” as his voice echoed in her mind. 

A different version has her spotting her former love in one of the mansion’s windows. When she rushed in to meet him, she found him pale with gray, empty eyes and a sickly thin frame. 

Before she could run from the fragile man, again he communicated, “Dead or alive, right?” before she left the mansion in her wake.

Reeling from her encounter the next day, Maggie learned that Jon had died the day before. He succumbed to polio he contracted as a child.  

Ghost Tours in Charlotte

The decrepit figure of Jon Avery is merely a drop in the well of spiritual energy that flows through Charlotte. Manifested from the city’s long history, these haunts make excellent stories for a Charlotte ghost tour. 

Book yours today with Charlotte Ghosts and hear even more tales like that of Jon Avery and The Duke Mansion, along with more tidbits about this extravagant property. 

As you wait for your scheduled tour, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and keep up with Charlotte’s most haunted on our blog.

Sources:

The Haunted Duke Mansion, Charlotte, NC

https://www.cmstory.org/exhibits/turn-20th-century-life-charlotte-1900-1910-looking-back-charlotte/looking-back-charlotte

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/charlottefive/c5-around-town/article236295298.html

https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/business-leaders/james-buchanan-duke

https://charlottecultureguide.com/organization/357/the-duke-mansion

The Duke Mansion

https://secure.smore.com/n/0e9bc-the-ghosts-of-charlotte