{"id":1543,"slug":"donnelly-house-mount-dora-florida","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Donnelly House is Mount Dora's gingerbread landmark — the Queen Anne mansion John P. Donnelly built in 1893, from a George Franklin Barber pattern-book design, on the hill overlooking Lake Dora. Donnelly had come over the hill in 1879 and stood for half an hour 'feasting his eyes' on the lake; he married Annie Stone, the town's biggest landholder, made his fortune in real estate and tangerines, founded the yacht club, and became the town's first mayor in 1910.","The house is the town's center of gravity: across from the park he sold the Women's Club in 1924 on the condition it be named for Annie, dead since 1908; and since the 1950s it's been the Masonic lodge, the Mount Dora Lodge No. 238 meeting in the 'gingerbread house' that the town's founding family built.","The file keeps the Donnelly House: the Barber Queen Anne, the first mayor, the park named for Annie, and the mansion that became the Masons'.","The Donnelly House is the archive's Mount Dora file — the 1893 Queen Anne, the mayor-builder, and the lodge hall it became."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Donnelly House is the archive's Mount Dora file — the Barber pattern mansion, the yacht-club founder, and the Masonic lodge it houses.","A mayor's gingerbread house keeps its tower — the file's suggestion being that Donnelly's hold is the founding: the man who saw the lake and stayed, the house he built on the hill, and the park across the street named for his wife."]}],"name":"Donnelly House","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_HOUSE","type_label":"Historic House","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","historic-sites"],"desc":"Historic house associated with published local folklore.","full_desc":"A historic house in Mount Dora, Florida, Donnelly House is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Historic house associated with published local folklore. The name the accounts keep returning to is Annie Donnelly. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":null,"city":"Mount Dora","county":null,"state":"Florida","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":28.813349,"lon":-81.633411,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Tourism describes an attraction blending an investigation with deliberately crafted escape-room anomalies; do not treat attraction effects as evidence.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":43.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":767,"type":"APPARITION","description":"VISIT FLORIDA recounts Annie Donnelly spirit claims. Donnelly House in Mount Dora, Florida is the kind of old house where every sound eventually gets a name. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. The account appears in 'A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours'. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"Annie Donnelly","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.75,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours","url":"https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/florida-ghost-tours/","publisher":"VISIT FLORIDA","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"VISIT FLORIDA recounts Annie Donnelly spirit claims. Donnelly House in Mount Dora, Florida is the kind of old house where every sound eventually gets a name. 'A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. Sources including 'A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours' keep the claim in circulation. The story outranks the documentation, which is how you know it's folklore.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours","url":"https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/florida-ghost-tours/","publisher":"VISIT FLORIDA","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[{"name":"Annie Donnelly","claimed_identity":"Annie Donnelly","verified":null,"summary":"VISIT FLORIDA recounts Annie Donnelly spirit claims. Donnelly House in Mount Dora, Florida is the kind of old house where every sound eventually gets a name. The account appears in 'A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours'. The lore has a face now: Annie Donnelly. The report keeps its place in the record. The reports keep the address on the map.","behavior":"VISIT FLORIDA recounts Annie Donnelly spirit claims.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours","url":"https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/florida-ghost-tours/","publisher":"VISIT FLORIDA","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours","url":"https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/florida-ghost-tours/","publisher":"VISIT FLORIDA","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Donnelly House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnelly_House","desc":"Topics referred to by the same term","extract":"Donnelly House may refer to:\n\nDonnelly House and Gardens (Birmingham, Alabama), on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)\nDonnelly House (Mount Dora, Florida), on the NRHP\nBartholomew J. Donnelly House, Daytona Beach, Florida, on the NRHP\nDaniel Donnelly House, Williamsport, Maryland, on the NRHP\nDonnelly House (New Lebanon, New York), on the NRHP","img":null,"score":89},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}