Does this ever happen to you?

You're touring an epic cathedral, driving across a well-designed bridge or watching the ballet and you feel conflicted. You're in awe of the grandeur, impressed by good design and beauty and yet, at the same time, your heart feels heavy because you're aware of a cost to the human body and spirit involved in the making.

It's no surprise I felt conflicted, strange really, when I toured a tobacco plantation mansion from the early 1800s when I visited Tennessee.

Cragfont mansion is about an hour from Nashville and only a little off the beaten path in a place called Castalian Springs. This two-story 19-room mansion was an administrative centre for a profitable tobacco plantation, and home to James and Susan Winchester and their 14 children.

The plantation's engine was the labour of more than 100 African-American slaves who lived in row quarters on the property.

With the end of slavery, the family was forced to sell Cragfont in 1867. It changed hands several times until the State of Tennessee bought it in 1958.

Today, Cragfont mansion is restored and open to explore. The grounds are even made available as a venue for events and weddings. Hundreds of music videos and scenes for movies are filmed there because of the landscape.

The slave quarters did not survive and were never reconstructed.

Our generous and welcoming tour guide, the caretaker for more than 32 years, offers us an extensive guided tour of the mansion as he tells us the plantation story.

The story we hear of Cragfont is about biography and greatness; the greatness of the plantation owners and the greatness of the mansion.

Cragfont, we are told, was the centre of Tennessee society and known as "The Grandeur on the Frontier." Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, and John Overton all stayed as guests.

Above: Winchester was an officer in the Revolutionary War, a Brigadier General in the War of 1812 credited with co-founding the city of Memphis.

Above: Susan Winchester, his wife and mother to 14 children.

We learn about the mansion's special architectural details; its T-shaped design and seven iron stars, anchor plates for iron rods that extend from the front to rear to strengthen the structure. Most homes in Tennessee at the time were log cabins. This home is built of limestone cut from a nearby quarry, and poplar, walnut, cherry and ash all cut from the surrounding forest.

The house is furnished with authentic American Federal antiques, there’s original stencilling on the parlour walls and stippling on the stair risers. There’s a doll house, supposedly the oldest one in North America. The second floor of the mansion features a ballroom - the first in Tennessee.

The story of slavery is barely mentioned except for mention of the "slave wall,” a stone wall made of rocks dug by slaves in preparing the ground for planting. There was also a some information about Dave, an enslaved potter who made urns.

None of the information shared with me during the tour got me thinking very deeply. In fact, I almost left the museum without thinking about slavery at all.

I felt lulled into an admiration for craftsmanship and design. Those gorgeous soapstone windowsills! That beautifully preserved wooden mantel! Those antiques!

There was no invitation to consider the forced labour of more than 100 African-American slaves who kept the home running smoothly, and the plantation providing wealth and grandeur to its owners.

But I can see how a plantation like Cragfont could be an enlightening tool for good civic discussion. For starters, why not change the plantation story from one of loss to one of gain? Don't focus on how a plantation suffered after the emancipation of its workforce. Highlight how the end of the slavery-based plantation system meant the freedom of four million people.

What about the use of plantation sites as venues for events? Some ask why people are still having plantation weddings at plantations that slaves built. Isn't that insensitive and strange?

Others see plantation sites as more than a pretty backdrop but as sacred spaces where healing and connection could happen. I read about a woman, a descendant of slaves, who wanted to hold a reunion with other descendants at a plantation site where ancestors had worked.

Even stupid questions from tourists can become tools to better understand race and history.

The web series, Ask a Slave, was born of an actress's experience portraying an actual slave while she worked as a character actor at Mount Vernon, George Washington's plantation home. The video series reveals shocking layers of ignorance of slavery yet invites discussion about plantations and their part in America's past.

I wasn't surprised to learn Cragfont is haunted.

Caretakers through the years report objects moved, candles lit, full-bodied apparitions seen and beds found unmade in the morning after things have been tidied and closed-up for the night. Firsthand accounts abound.

I noticed our tour guide remove his prescription glasses and leave them on the table before we began the tour. He explained he no longer wears them in the house because they've been damaged so often and it's too expensive to keep buying new ones.