McLean Hospital

With prominent former patients like John Nash, Ray Charles, Zelda Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace, McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., has long had a reputation as the insane asylum for the rich and famous. The private facility was the setting for "The Bell Jar" and "Girl, Interrupted," and a teenage James Taylor wrote one of his first songs, "Knockin' 'Round the Zoo," about his stay at McLean.

In fact, the mellow-voiced singing legend credits the Thorazine-filled nine months he spent committed at McLean as a "life saver." Today, McLean Hospital is one of the most well-regarded psychiatric facilities in the world.