If you are someone who has a knack for tales of paranormal activity and hauntings, you must be aware of the haunted history of New Orleans. The Big Easy has a history of black magic, voodoo practices, despicable treatment of slaves, murder, suicide, the practice of mystical arts and many other less than pleasant activities. Here are some of the Haunted Hotels in New Orleans you might want to visit.
The Dark History Of New Orleans
No wonder New Orleans is cited as the most haunted city in America, and one of the most haunted cities in the world. The city is no stranger to loss, since its birth, you could say death has been embedded in its DNA. Perhaps because of that, its dark past doesn’t quite stay in the past. It has a tragic history of fires, floods, disease and bloodshed.
So it is not a surprise that every year, a lot of people come to New Orleans in hopes of encountering paranormal activity or seeing with their own eyes if the spirit world exists. If you are one such person and you’re in New Orleans, here are some of the haunted hotels in New Orleans you might want to check out.
1. Le Pavillon Hôtel
Le Pavillon Hotel, nicknamed ‘The Belle of New Orleans’ is a gorgeous building. It is as breathtaking from the outside as it is on the inside and the staff ensures their guests experience the height of hotel luxury while staying here. Who would want to leave such a place, right?
Well, some people have not left even after death.
1.1 The Ghosts of Le Pavillon Hotel
In the early nineteenth century, the street on which the hotel now stands was a hotbed for thieves, smugglers, gangsters, and other criminals. From bribery to murder, the street had seen its fair share of crimes.
Before it was a hotel, it used to be a theatre in the 1800s. It became the New Hotel Denechaud in 1899, and Hotel De Soto in 1913, before coming to be known as the opulent Hotel that it is today.
According to some paranormal investigators who visited the place in 1996, there are a staggering close to 100 restless spirits roaming the corridors here. No wonder it is one of the most haunted hotels in New Orleans.
1.1.1 The Ghost Of A Girl
Among the ghosts of Le Pavillon is the famous ghost of a little girl named Ava or Eve.
In the mid-eighteen hundreds, a teenager Eve/Ava was hurrying to reach the docks because she had a ship to board. The girl was already running late for the boarding, a perhaps in her hurry, she didn’t notice a horse drawn carriage barreling into her and, upon collision, she died on the spot.
The hotel wasn’t built at the time but the place where Eve took her last breaths happens to be the same place where the main entrance of the hotel sits now.
The ghost of the poor girl appears in Room 930. She is simply seen cowering near the wall as if she is frightened of whoever is in the room with her. Guests experience feeling a sense of dread and confusion upon entering the room.
1.1.2 The Couple From The 1900s
There is a couple dressed in the fashion from the nineteenth century that is seen frequently roaming around Hotel Monteleone.
Many guests report thinking that the couple is normal guests at the hotel. It is only when they disappear into thin air, do the people around them get baffled. The couple is seen getting inside an elevator, only the elevator doesn’t go anywhere. After some time of sitting on the same floor, the doors of the elevator would open but the couple would be nowhere to be seen.
1.1.3 The Prankster
This ghost appears to be a young man with black hair, no shoes and a colourful shirt. Guests complain that he pulls the bedcovers from over them when they are sleeping, the cleaning staff has reported some of their cleaning supplies going missing and then mysteriously reappearing in places they had never left them.
He likes to hang around the sixth and third-floors hallway, between rooms 301 and 302. He is often seen floating around the hallways, only to disappear into walls when someone approaches him.
2. Lafitte Guest House
Situated on Bourbon Street, in the heart of the French Quarter, Lafitte guest house is a luxury boutique. This place also acts as an art gallery, displaying the work of some of the best artists in New Orleans and the world. And it is also one of the most haunted hotels in New Orleans.
The place is just around the corner from Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, also haunted, a pub that is named after the pirate brothers, Jean and Pierre Lafitte. The brothers, but mainly Jean, were war heroes who fought for the independence of New Orleans and Louisiana from the British colonies in the eighteen hundreds.
2.1 Ghosts Of Lafitte Guest House
The haunted hotel is home to more than one restless soul. It is said that an infant has died on the property and to this day, people hear a baby’s cries. A young girl, Marie died of yellow fever in Room no. 21 and she still has not left the room. Guests and hotel employees report seeing the girl in the mirror. She also likes to talk to the children who come to the guest house. She is not the only ghost who makes this places one of the most haunted hotels in New Orleans.
It is believed that Marie’s mother also died a few years after her daughter, coincidentally in the same room, 21. Guests have a feeling of deep sorrow in the room. It could be either the mother or the daughter projecting their emotions onto the tourists.
3. The Bourbon Orleans Hotel
The Bourbon Orleans hotel was not always a hotel. It started as a Theatre that was very popular in its days. In fact, its success made the owner decide to open Salle d’Orleans, also known as the Orleans Ballroom right next door to the theatre. Beautiful ladies would dance countless nights away in this ballroom. The Gentlemen would offer for the lady of their choice and whirlwind courting would begin.
After the civil war, the theatre and ballroom shut down and they were purchased by the Sisters of the Holy Family, the first African-American convent. The nuns lived here and even tended to the yellow fever patients when the epidemic was wiping out people of the Crescent City.
3.1 The Ghosts At Bourbon Orleans Hotel
This haunted hotel is home to many spirits, which is why it is added to this list of creepy, haunted hotels in New Orleans. The ghosts of the children who died here from yellow fever still haven’t left. Staff and guests alike have talked about hearing children playing in the corridors only to find the area empty when they go to check. If you have your back turned and you feel someone tug at your shirt, one of these ghost kids is probably the culprit.
3.2 Haunted Rooms In Bourbon Orleans Hotel
Room 644 is said to be the most haunted room in our next hotel in the list of haunted hotels in New Orleans. People who have stayed in the Bourbon Orleans hotel have heard screams coming from inside the room, even when it is uninhabited. It is believed that one of the nuns who lived here when the place was a convent, committed suicide in room 644 and that it is she who still resides there to this day. Some guests report having seen her in the same room, she just stands at the edge of the bed and stares at them with a calm, kind expression on her face.
A civil war soldier walks the hallways wearing his bloodied, tattered uniform and dragging his sword behind. A guest reported mysterious sounds of heavy boots climbing up and down the stairs and then, the distinct sound of an iron sword dragging on the floor.
3.3 Ballroom Apparition In Bourbon Orleans Hotel
In the historic Orleans Ballroom, a spirit of a young woman shrouded in moonlight still comes to dance her heart away. The ghost dancer appears to be in the arms of her lover. Employees of Bourbon Orleans have also had to clean a mysterious blood stain on the carpet over and over, only for it to reappear after some time. It is said this blood stain originates from a duel fought between two gentlemen who fell for the same woman. These haunted hotels in New Orleans really do have the wildest histories.
4. Hotel Monteleone
The beautiful Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter is one of the few businesses still run by the Monteleone family. The namesake family has been running the hotel Monteleone for more than five generations. Let’s find out why it’s in the list of haunted hotels in New Orleans.
4.1 Haunted 14th Floor at Monteleone
The hotel has the ghost of a little boy named Maurice Begere living there. The story goes like this, Three-year-old Maurice and his parents were staying at this historic hotel in the 1880s. The parents had gone down to have dinner and left Maurice with a nanny. When they came back up to their room, they found Maurice had died from a fever he had developed overnight.
The distraught parents returned frequently to Hotel Monteleone on their son’s birthday and one such time, the mother heard little Maurice’s voice, telling her not to cry, that he was okay. Since then, other guests have also reported seeing the mischievous young boy on the 14th floor. It is believed that he also tampers with the hotel lift and holds visitors’ hands.
5. Omni Royal Orleans Hotel
Initially called Hotel St. Louis in the late 1800s when it was built, this is yet another one of the haunted hotels in New Orleans located in the equally haunted French Quarter. This is where slaves were frequently sold and bought by the affluent people of society. Human slaves were kept in the hotel under living conditions that were not ideal, and then they were auctioned off to wealthy plantation owners and people who wanted slave servants.
The Omni Royal Orleans also served as a military hospital for the civil war soldiers.
5.1 Ghosts At Omni Royal Orleans
Nowadays, guests recount seeing a ghostly maid wandering the halls, simply asking if the guests are taken care of. She makes the beds and cleans the rooms of guests. A guest even spoke about how while they were sleeping in their bed, someone seemed to have had ‘tucked them in‘ because when they woke up the next morning, the sheets around them were perfectly tucked into the mattress.
Screams, moans and sounds of pain are heard in the corridors, probably because of the misery and ill treatment the human slaves were subjected to within the walls of this place.
6. Dauphine Orleans Hotel
Dauphine Orleans Hotel is located just one block away from Bourbon street, in the heart of the French Quarter. Again, a lot of these haunted hotels in New Orleans are located in the French quarter. With over 100 guest rooms, the Dauphine Orleans stretches on both sides of the street. The hotel is a hub for people who love to discover haunted places and ghost stories.
6.1 Ghost Of A Bride-To-Be
One of the most haunted places in New Orleans is May bailey’s place, which used to be a brothel in the 1800s but today serves as a hotel bar. Madame Bailey’s little sister Millie didn’t like being associated with the brothel in New Orleans and she was going to leave. She was going to marry her lover and never look back. Unfortunately, mere days before the wedding, her fiancé was shot dead in a gambling accident.
A distraught Millie never married but she did like to wear her wedding gown around the brothel often. Hotel guests say she still does.
A faint female shadow wearing a white wedding gown often appears near the bar, perhaps still waiting for her lover who never got to see her dressed as a bride.
6.2 General Eldridge
Another ghost, this one a confederacy soldier but not Millie’s lover, unfortunately, paces the hotel’s courtyard, as if worried about something or awaiting an important message. A paranormal research team and ghost hunters deduced the general’s name to be Eldridge.
Employees at the bar have even crazier tales to tell about the haunted events that occur at the building. The restaurant door opened on its own when an employee had just locked it, and liquor bottles fell to the floor on their own, a stool levitated in the air, the radio station being changed when no one (alive, at least) touched it. Needless to say, the haunted history of this place makes it one of the most haunted hotels in New Orleans.
7. Hotel Provincial
This next haunted hotel is not only the most haunted hotel in New Orleans but is notoriously called one of the most haunted hotels in the world. Hotel Provincial was a military hospital during the time of the civil war and has seen its fair share of blood, gore and death.
Given the hotel’s haunted history, it is no surprise that a lot of the soldiers who died painful deaths here, still roam the halls and disappear into walls. An elderly ghost frequents the second floor and it is believed that he is the surgeon who tried to treat the soldiers. Hotel guest rooms often need to be cleaned more than once a day because of mysterious bloodstains that appear on bed sheets, carpets and towels.
Ghostly images in the fireplace, the shower heads turning on, on their own and ghostly figures roaming the hallways are common occurrences in one of the haunted hotels in New Orleans.
7.1 Hospital Floor Hallway At Hotel Provincial
People hear loud moans and groans of pain deep into the night, a group of guests even took an elevator ride that did not only take them to the wrong floor, but to a place that didn’t even exist anymore. The elevator doors opened to a vivid scene of a bloody hospital floor, before closing again. Do you see a pattern here? Apparently, spirits love spending time in elevators in these haunted hotels in New Orleans.
Final Note
These were the most haunted hotels in New Orleans, perhaps some of the most haunted hotels in the world! If you are in New Orleans, you must check out these hotels (you might want to check out, literally, they are so haunted) and do go on ghost city tours.
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Last Updated on by Pragya Chakrapani