Belvoir Winery

A winery housed in the historic Odd Fellows Home complex, a Jacobethan Revival community that once included an orphanage, nursing home, hospital, and school for members of the fraternal order. Featured on Ghost Adventures and Kindred Spirits.

Belvoir Winery in Liberty, Missouri, occupies a sprawling stone complex that was originally built as the Odd Fellows Home, a facility operated by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows to care for their members' widows, orphans, and elderly. The fraternal order, founded in 1819 in Baltimore, created communities across America to ensure that no member's family would be abandoned in times of need. The Liberty complex served as an orphanage, a nursing home, and a hospital at various points in its history, housing generations of the most vulnerable -- children without parents, elderly without families, and the sick without hope of recovery.

The sheer volume of human suffering and death that occurred within these walls over more than a century has made Belvoir one of the most intensely haunted locations in the greater Kansas City area. Every staff member, from the owners to the housekeeping crew, has experienced and reported their own personal encounters with the supernatural. The consistency and frequency of the reports distinguish Belvoir from locations where ghost stories are occasional curiosities -- here, paranormal activity is a daily reality.

The most commonly encountered spirit is an older gentleman whose presence lingers near the old hospital wing. Witnesses describe his energy as dark and brooding, fundamentally different from the other ghosts that populate the complex. He is seen standing in doorways or moving slowly through the corridors of the former medical facility, his demeanor suggesting anger or unresolved pain rather than the more benign energy of the other spirits.

The orphanage history produces the most emotionally affecting hauntings. Overnight guests at the bed and breakfast have awakened to find spectral children standing near their beds, watching them with silent curiosity. Others feel the distinct pressure of a small body trying to climb onto the bed covers, the mattress depressing as if a child is seeking comfort in the night. The sounds of children running through hallways, their footsteps and laughter echoing through empty corridors, are heard with particular frequency in the wing that once housed the orphanage.

SyFy's Ghost Hunters filmed an investigation at Belvoir that produced evidence consistent with the reported haunting. The winery now offers public paranormal investigations on select Friday nights each October, and these events sell out rapidly. The transformation of the Odd Fellows Home into a winery and inn has brought new life to the property, but the old residents -- the orphans, the widows, the sick, and the dying -- appear to have remained, creating one of the most active haunted venues in Missouri.