Haunted Hotels in North Carolina: 10 Historic Places to Stay With Ghost Stories
From the Pink Lady of Asheville’s Grove Park Inn to Sheriff in Room 205 at the Balsam Mountain Inn, these are the North Carolina hotels where guests still report ghosts, and every one of them takes bookings.
North Carolina’s haunted hotels trace its history: mountain resorts built for railroad and motor tourists, a converted 1837 cotton mill in Winston-Salem, a 1920s university inn in Chapel Hill and grand Charlotte and Greensboro buildings that survived decades of decline. We checked every hotel on the original version of this page against current sources, kept the nine you can still book, added Asheville’s Reynolds Mansion, updated the names that have changed, and moved the Green Park Inn, demolished in 2025, to the end of the guide. Ghost stories are told as guests, staff and local historians tell them. For more, see haunted places in North Carolina.
$$$ · Over $300Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 290 Macon Ave, Asheville, NC 28804
Where to look Room 545 in the Main Inn, the Palm Court atrium, the fifth-floor halls and the Main Inn elevators
Reported ghosts The Pink Lady, a young woman in a pink gown said to have fallen into the Palm Court around 1920
Booking the haunted room Room 545 is a regular Main Inn guest room. Call the resort to request it; it cannot always be guaranteed.
Edwin Wiley Grove and his son-in-law Fred Seely built this granite boulder resort on Sunset Mountain in less than a year, and it opened on July 12, 1913. Presidents from Taft to Obama have stayed, F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the summers of the mid-1930s in rooms 441 and 443, and in World War II it held Axis diplomats. Today it is a 513-room Omni resort.
Its ghost is the Pink Lady. The story says a young woman fell from the fifth floor into the Palm Court atrium around 1920. In 1996 the resort asked author Joshua P. Warren to investigate, and he collected accounts from nearly 50 people: chills outside Room 545, a pinkish mist, lights switching off in a closed inn and a gentle presence that sits on the bed.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for Room 545 in the Main Inn when you call; some guests request it and others ask to be as far from it as possible.
Where to look Room 401 and the fourth floor, the hallways and the wooden-floored lobby
Reported ghosts Sally, a mill worker said to have died in an elevator shaft; Eddie, linked to a skeleton story; two children in nightshirts
Booking the haunted room Room 401 is a regular guest room. Call the inn to request it or another fourth-floor room.
The Brookstown Inn is a brick cotton mill built for the Salem Manufacturing Company in the 1830s, next door to Old Salem. It later milled flour, held warehouse stock and was a moving and storage company before Old Salem stepped in to stop a planned demolition in 1976. It opened as an inn in 1984 and now has 71 rooms with exposed brick, timber beams and nightly wine and cheese.
Guests and staff tell of Sally, a mill worker said to have been pushed down an elevator shaft by a co-worker after a fight in the fourth-floor dormitory. Room 401 is said to be that dormitory, and paranormal investigators book rooms on the fourth floor. Other reports include children laughing in the halls and footsteps blamed on a spirit called Eddie.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book a fourth-floor room and ask for 401; it is the room most linked to Sally.
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 211 Pittsboro St, Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Where to look Room 256 (part of Dr. Jacocks' old Suite 252) and the second-floor halls
Reported ghosts Dr. William Jacocks, a retired physician who lived in Suite 252 from 1948 until his death in 1965
Booking the haunted room Room 256 is a regular guest room. Call the inn to request it; it is not guaranteed.
UNC alumnus John Sprunt Hill built the Carolina Inn on the edge of campus in 1924 and gave it to the university in 1935, so that its profits would support the library. Known as the university’s living room, the red brick inn with its tall white portico now has 185 rooms, is on the National Register and is run by Hyatt.
Its ghost is Dr. William Jacocks, a retired physician who lived in Suite 252 from 1948 until he died in 1965. The suite was split up in 1990 and part of it is now Room 256, where guests report being locked out, curtains opening, rumpled bath mats and the smell of fresh flowers. The university itself tells the story every Halloween.
Haunted Rooms tip: Request Room 256 when you book; the university notes it can still be booked.
Where to look Rooms 205 and 207, the long second-floor hallways
Reported ghosts "Sheriff," a visitor shot outside the inn in 1928 who is said to have died in Room 205; footsteps, whispered names and tugged bedding
Opened in 1908 as the Balsam Mountain Springs Hotel beside what was billed as the highest railroad station east of the Rockies, this white wooden inn with its 100-foot double porch sits at about 3,750 feet in the Smokies foothills near Waynesville. After years as the Grand Old Lady Hotel and a pandemic closure, Rodney and Lorraine Conard bought it in 2022, restored the Balsam Mountain Inn name and reopened all 50 rooms.
Former owner Marzena Wyszynska told WLOS her blanket was pulled off the bed on her first night, and investigators she hired named a spirit “Sheriff,” a visitor shot outside in 1928 who is said to have died in Room 205. Rooms 205 and 207 get the most reports: slamming doors, cold air, footsteps and voices calling names. The 2021 film Balsam: A Paranormal Investigation was shot here.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for Room 205 or 207 when you book by phone, and bring the dog: several rooms are dog-friendly.
Where to look Room 223 (Lydia's pink room), Room 332 (Philip's office), the main staircase and the elevator
Reported ghosts Philip (Phillip Mullins), found dead outside in 1932; Lydia, a red-haired young woman found at the foot of the stairs in 1933; a small blond boy in the elevator
Booking the haunted room The old hotel said room numbers could not be guaranteed; after the 2026 renovation, ask the hotel directly before booking.
Greensboro’s oldest hotel started life in 1903 as the headquarters of denim pioneers Moses and Caesar Cone. It later became a women-only rooming house, the Greenwich Inn and, from 1992, the Biltmore Greensboro. In 2026 new owners renamed it Hotel Orlo, after architect Orlo Epps, and gave the building a full renovation before reopening it as a boutique hotel with a bar.
Two names dominate its ghost stories. Philip, a man found dead beside the building in 1932, is blamed for footsteps and a figure at the foot of the bed near Room 332. Lydia, a red-haired young woman found at the foot of the stairs in 1933, is linked to Room 223, a pink room where guests left her pink lipstick. Staff have also described men feeling pushed on the stairs.
Haunted Rooms tip: Room numbers may change after the 2026 renovation, so ask the front desk which rooms were 223 and 332.
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookablePet friendly
Address 100 Reynolds Heights, Asheville, NC 28804
Where to look The main staircase and the third-floor Maggie room
Reported ghosts Annie Lee Reynolds on the stairs and a Reynolds child who died of typhoid
Booking the haunted room The Maggie room is a regular third-floor guest room you can choose by name when you book online. Guests must be 16 or older.
The Reynolds Mansion is a red-brick antebellum house on a knoll of Reynolds Mountain in north Asheville, one of fewer than ten pre-Civil War brick homes left in western North Carolina. Daniel Reynolds raised ten children here; his son Gus added a third floor and wraparound porches around 1905, and from 1919 to 1924 Dr. Elizabeth Smith ran it as the Asheville Osteopathic Sanatorium. It has been a bed and breakfast for decades and is on the National Register.
Former co-owner Billy Sanders told Mountain Xpress that guests often report two spirits: Annie Lee Reynolds, most often seen on the main staircase, and a Reynolds daughter who died of typhoid at six, heard as a child’s voice or seen as orbs. He called the third-floor Maggie room, which he said was Annie Lee’s, probably the most haunted, and said most guests who book it ask for it on purpose. Today’s innkeepers do not promote the ghosts.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book the Maggie room on the third floor by name; it is a modest queen room with a shower, so book a larger room on the second floor if comfort matters more than the story.
Sleeping in a haunted hotel is one thing. Investigating one after dark is another. On a Haunted Rooms ghost hunt our team takes you through the building with professional ghost hunting equipment, runs EVP sessions and lets you explore on your own during free roam.
Where to look The elevators and elevator shaft, the lobby, the bar and the back rooms
Reported ghosts Dusty, a mischievous spirit linked to a skeleton found in the elevator shaft in 1988; a woman with long black hair; a woman's laugh in the lobby
Opened in November 1929 as the Mayfair Manor, an apartment hotel for permanent residents and travelers, this ten-story brick tower on North Tryon Street is the last of Uptown Charlotte’s early hotels still taking guests. It declined as the James Lee Motor Inn, closed in 1981 and reopened in 1988 as the 60-room Dunhill, now a Historic Hotels of America member.
During the renovation in February 1988, a laborer found a man’s skeleton at the bottom of an elevator shaft near the basement boiler room. He was never identified. Staff call the hotel’s resident spirit Dusty and say he flickers lights, moves glasses in the bar and plays with the elevator. Others describe a woman’s laugh in the lobby and a woman with knee-length black hair.
Haunted Rooms tip: Staff do not volunteer the stories, so ask at the bar; in October look out for the hotel’s Haunted History Dinner Package.
Where to look Room 217, the dining room and the spa
Reported ghosts A woman said to have been murdered in Room 217 in the 1930s; Dr. Lucius Morse in the dining room; a gravelly male voice calling staff by name
The cream stucco inn opened in 1927 with the new resort town of Lake Lure, below Chimney Rock in Hickory Nut Gorge. It hosted Franklin Roosevelt, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Calvin Coolidge, housed the cast of Dirty Dancing in 1987, and from 1943 to 1945 housed officers at an Army Air Forces rest center for combat aviators. Atlanta-based Ridgeline bought the 72-room inn in 2024.
Staff have reported shadows in the spa and a low, gravelly voice calling their names when no one is there. Local legend puts a woman murdered in the 1930s in Room 217, where a Forest City investigation group says it twice recorded a woman’s scream, and others describe a figure they identify as Dr. Lucius Morse in the dining room.
Haunted Rooms tip: Lake Lure reopened in May 2026 after Hurricane Helene; check which restaurants and spa services are running before you go.
Where to look The gardens, the upstairs bedrooms and the top-floor windows
Reported ghosts Jon Avery, said to have kept a midnight promise to a young writer, "dead or alive"
Built in 1915 for Zebulon Taylor and tripled in size from 1919 by tobacco and power magnate James Buchanan Duke, this white Colonial Revival mansion in Myers Park is now a 20-room nonprofit inn run by the Lynnwood Foundation. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, breakfast comes with every stay, and the gardens are among the prettiest in Charlotte.
Its ghost story is a love story. Local legend says Jon Avery, a married man who lived in the house, fell for a young writer and made her promise to meet him a year later, “dead or alive.” When she came back at midnight, a pale figure in dark clothes repeated the words and walked on. She learned he had died days before. The inn’s own history does not mention an Avery, so treat it as legend.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book a King Porch Room for the sleeping-porch feel, and take a late walk through the gardens where the story is set.
Where to look The room long known as the Robert Frost Room
Reported ghosts Marion Bridgette, a nurse who bought the house in 1928
This shingled 1889 Queen Anne house a few blocks north of downtown Asheville was for years the 1889 WhiteGate Inn & Cottage, a much-loved bed and breakfast with rooms named after American writers. It reopened in 2024 as Blind Tiger Asheville, a 14-room boutique guest house (including a cottage) from Lark Hotels, with local art, antiques and a grab-and-go breakfast.
Under its old name the inn was known for one ghost: Marion Bridgette, a nurse who bought the house as her home in 1928. She was said to favor the Robert Frost Room, where guests reported slamming doors, footsteps, flickering lights and floating orbs. The new owners do not promote the story, so ask at check-in which room was the old Frost Room.
Haunted Rooms tip: The new owners do not talk up the ghost; ask which room was the old Robert Frost Room when you book.
The 1882 Green Park Inn on the Eastern Continental Divide, where local lore placed the founder’s daughter Laura Green in Room 318, closed and was demolished in 2025. For a historic mountain stay with ghost stories, book the Balsam Mountain Inn or the Grove Park Inn instead.
Changes in this update: The Grand Old Lady Hotel is the Balsam Mountain Inn again. The 1889 WhiteGate Inn is now Blind Tiger Asheville, and the Biltmore Greensboro is now Hotel Orlo. The Green Park Inn in Blowing Rock was demolished in 2025 and is listed separately above. Removed from this guide: the Brunswick Inn in Southport, the historic Bay Street inn known for Tony, an Italian harpist said to have drowned in the 1880s. It ran as a three-room bed and breakfast, but we could not confirm that it still takes overnight guests, so we have left it out until we can.
Stayed in one of these hotels? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from guests and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your stay. We read every story before it’s published.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most haunted hotel in North Carolina?
The Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville has the best-known ghost, the Pink Lady of Room 545, and the Balsam Mountain Inn near Waynesville has the most reported activity, centered on Rooms 205 and 207. The Historic Brookstown Inn in Winston-Salem, with Sally on the fourth floor, is close behind.
Can you book a haunted room in North Carolina?
Several hotels let you ask for one by phone: Room 545 at the Grove Park Inn, Room 256 at the Carolina Inn, Room 401 at the Brookstown Inn and Room 205 or 207 at the Balsam Mountain Inn. None can be guaranteed, so call ahead.
Is the Grand Old Lady Hotel still open?
Yes, under its original name. The Grand Old Lady Hotel closed in 2020, and owners Rodney and Lorraine Conard, who bought it in 2022, reopened it as the Balsam Mountain Inn.
Is the Green Park Inn in Blowing Rock still open?
No. The 1882 hotel, known for the story of Laura Green in Room 318, closed and was demolished in 2025 to make way for condominiums and a new, smaller hotel.
Which North Carolina city has the most haunted hotels?
Asheville, with three: the Omni Grove Park Inn, the Reynolds Mansion and Blind Tiger (the former 1889 WhiteGate Inn), plus the Balsam Mountain Inn and Lake Lure Inn within an hour. Charlotte has two, the Dunhill and the Duke Mansion. See our guide to haunted hotels in Asheville.
Are there ghost hunts in North Carolina?
Yes. Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts on the USS Battleship North Carolina in Wilmington and an overnight ghost hunt and sleepover at the Roanoke Island Inn in Manteo.
Sources and how we research
Every hotel in this guide is checked against the hotel’s own website, historic register listings and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as the hotels, guests and local historians tell them; we note where a story can’t be confirmed. Read how we rate haunted hotels.
New guides, haunted hotel picks and ghost hunt dates near you. No spam, unsubscribe any time.
About the authors
The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every hotel in our guides using hotel histories, local archives, news coverage and the accounts of guests and staff, and we review each guide regularly so you are not booking a hotel that has closed or changed its name. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
Booking links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects which hotels we include or how we score them.
