Ten San Francisco hotels where guests and staff report something they cannot explain, from a Victorian girls’ school to the hotel where a president died.
San Francisco’s haunted hotels were almost all born from the same disaster: the 1906 earthquake and fire, which leveled the city and gave it the Edwardian hotels, boarding houses and grand rebuilt palaces that still line Sutter, Powell and Market streets. Every hotel below takes overnight guests today. We checked current names and status, corrected stories older guides got wrong, moved one closed hotel to its own section and noted what we removed and why. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. For Alcatraz and the rest of the city’s spooky sites, see our guide to haunted places in San Francisco.
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 1590 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA 94109
Where to look Room 410 (the Mary Lake Room), the grand staircase, the parlor, the fourth-floor hallway
Reported ghosts Miss Mary Lake, the school's headmistress
Booking the haunted room Room 410 can be booked: call the hotel on 415-441-2828 or email stay@queenanne.com to reserve it.
Built in 1890 as Miss Mary Lake’s School for Girls, paid for by silver king Senator James “Slippery Jim” Fair, the Queen Anne Hotel is a restored Victorian mansion in Lower Pacific Heights and San Francisco’s best-known haunted hotel. Its ghost is said to be the headmistress herself, Mary Lake, and her old office is now Room 410.
Guests in 410 describe being tucked in at night, finding their suitcases unpacked and hearing soft singing. Others report a woman in a dark Victorian dress on the grand staircase and cold spots on the fourth floor. The hotel is relaxed about the stories, Room 410 can be booked, and the rate includes breakfast and afternoon tea and sherry in the parlor.
Haunted Rooms tip: Call the hotel to reserve Room 410 itself, rather than booking a room type online.
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 1500 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
Where to look Room 407 and the fourth floor, Room 408
Reported ghosts A young woman believed to be the builder's daughter
Booking the haunted room Call the hotel after booking and ask for Room 407 or another fourth-floor room. Requests are not guaranteed.
The Hotel Majestic was built in 1902 by the Schmitt family, survived the 1906 earthquake with the fires stopping just two blocks away, and calls itself the longest continuously operating hotel in San Francisco. The Edwardian corner building on Sutter Street in Pacific Heights is filled with antiques, and a portrait of a young woman hangs in the lobby to this day.
She is the ghost. Long-time locals believe the spirit on the fourth floor is the daughter of Milton Schmitt, who lived in the hotel, and Room 407 is the most requested. Guests report a woman in old-fashioned dress, footsteps, jingling keys, taps running and windows opening by themselves. A clerk said she felt two hands push her in Room 408. Skeptics blame the old plumbing.
Haunted Rooms tip: Request Room 407 by number, and look for the portrait in the lobby before you go up.
$$$ · Over $300Ghost tours or eventsHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 41 Tunnel Rd, Berkeley, CA 94705
Where to look The fourth floor and Room 422, the seventh floor, the elevators, the hallways
Reported ghosts A six-year-old girl, a baby heard in empty rooms, a woman in a high-necked Victorian dress
Booking the haunted room The resort does not sell a haunted room. Ask for the fourth floor, or Room 422, when booking direct.
The white Tudor Revival hotel in the Berkeley Hills opened in 1915 on the site of a hilltop “castle” that burned in 1901. Now called Claremont Resort & Club (it was a Fairmont, the Claremont Club & Spa, until 2025), it has one of the Bay Area’s best-known ghost reputations, centered on the fourth floor and Room 422, where guests report construction noise from empty rooms.
The most famous ghost is a little girl of about six who sits on the edge of beds and giggles in the halls. San Antonio Spurs players Tim Duncan and Jeff Ayres said they heard a baby inside a locked, empty room in 2014. The resort embraces the stories, with Haunted History Tours on October weekends that visit the hotel’s most haunted room.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book the October Haunted History Tour: it visits the most haunted room, whose number the staff keep private.
Address 2237 Mason Street, San Francisco, CA 94133
Where to look Room 33, Room 42, the hallways, the restaurant
Reported ghosts The Painted Lady, a madam; a little girl; a shadow figure in the restaurant
Booking the haunted room Rooms 33 and 42 are ordinary guest rooms. Call the hotel after booking to request one; it is not guaranteed.
The San Remo was built right after the 1906 earthquake and fire as the New California Hotel, a cheap and cheerful base for immigrants, sailors and artists between North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf. It took its current name in 1922. Today it is a 62-room European-style pension with antique furniture, pedestal sinks and some of the best-value rooms in the city.
Its ghost stories are some of the most specific in San Francisco. The Painted Lady, said to be a madam who ran the place as a brothel, is blamed for knocks on the door of Room 33 when nobody is there, and one guest described a dark figure standing by that room’s door. A little girl is seen in the hallways trying to get into Room 42.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for Room 33 or 42 when you book and pack a robe, since most bathrooms are shared and down the hall; then walk to Fisherman’s Wharf after dark.
Address 2 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
Where to look The Garden Court, the Pied Piper Bar, the dining rooms, the kitchen, the eighth floor
Reported ghosts The Lady in Red; a French girl asking for soup; a shoulder-tapper in the Pied Piper; President Warren Harding
The Palace opened in 1875 as one of the largest and most lavish hotels in the world, survived the shaking of 1906 and then burned in the fires that followed. The rebuilt hotel opened in 1909 on the same corner of Market and New Montgomery, with the glass-roofed Garden Court and Maxfield Parrish’s Pied Piper mural in the bar. President Warren Harding died here, in an eighth-floor suite, in 1923.
It has more ghost stories than almost any hotel in the city. A woman in red is said to walk the halls at night and visit men traveling alone; a girl in old-fashioned French dress has appeared in the kitchen asking for soup; someone unseen taps drinkers on the shoulder in the Pied Piper Bar. Some guests even report a figure resembling Harding at the windows.
Haunted Rooms tip: Have a drink under the Pied Piper mural late in the evening, then look up at the Garden Court’s glass ceiling on your way out.
Address 495 Jefferson Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
Where to look Upper-floor corridors, guest rooms
Reported ghosts Children running in the halls at night; heavy footsteps overhead
The Argonaut fills the Haslett Warehouse, a 1907 brick cannery building at Fisherman’s Wharf that is part of San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Exposed brick, timber beams and a nautical theme run through its 252 rooms, and the Hyde Street Pier and its historic ships are just across the street. It is run by Noble House Hotels and Resorts.
Ghost stories here come from guests and were repeated by the hotel’s own managing director to a travel magazine. People describe the sound of children running down the corridor around 3 a.m. with nobody in sight, heavy footsteps from empty rooms above despite carpeted floors, and beds that seem to shift. One couple insisted a ghost had followed them, and the front desk waived their charges.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book a courtyard or upper-floor room, then walk out to the Hyde Street Pier at night, when the old ships creak at their moorings.
Where to look The seventh floor of the main building, the hidden staircase up to the Penthouse, the guest corridors
Reported ghosts The Fair sisters, a cheerful woman said to have died in her room, World War II era soldiers
Sisters Tessie Fair Oelrichs and Virginia Fair Vanderbilt built the Fairmont on the crest of Nob Hill in honor of their father, silver king James Fair. The 1906 earthquake and fire gutted it just before it was due to open; Julia Morgan rebuilt the interior, and it opened on April 18, 1907. The United Nations Charter was finalized here in 1945, and Tony Bennett first sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” in its Venetian Room.
The hotel does not tell ghost stories, but San Francisco ghost tours and haunted lists do. The Fair sisters are said to still check on guests, sometimes with a light touch on the cheek in the night. Other tales describe a friendly woman who chats with guests, soldiers from the Second World War on the seventh floor, and a haunted hidden staircase up to the Penthouse.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book a room in the historic main building rather than the tower, then have a drink in the Tonga Room before the late ghost tours pass by on Nob Hill.
Address 433 Powell Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Where to look The 13th and 15th floors
Reported ghosts Unexplained lights, knocks and presences; no single named ghost
The Chancellor opened in 1914, built for the crowds expected at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, and was the tallest hotel in the city at the time. It is still one of the few family owned and operated hotels in San Francisco, a slim tower right on the Powell Street cable car line, a block from Union Square.
The general manager has said staff have heard about strange happenings on the 13th and 15th floors for years. Guests describe lights that switch on in the middle of the night, knocking inside walls and cold presences beside the bed, and a paranormal investigator from Ghost Hunters who stayed here said he sensed several spirits. There is no tragic backstory attached, which some guests find even more unsettling.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for a high floor; the 13th and 15th are where staff say the stories come from, and the cable car bell will be your alarm clock.
Address 562 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Where to look The fourth floor, the alley behind the hotel
Reported ghosts A man in old-fashioned work clothes seen by housekeepers; phantom hoofbeats
Hotel Emblem is the 2020s rebrand of the Hotel Rex, a literary-salon themed boutique hotel two blocks from Union Square. The look is a nod to the 1920s writers and artists who gathered in the city, and it is one of the better-value stylish stays near the cable cars. If you search for the Hotel Rex ghost, this is the building.
The best-known story comes from housekeeping staff, who described a man in old-fashioned clothes walking the fourth floor holding a meat cleaver before vanishing. Local lore ties him to the Chinese immigrants who lived in the area during the Gold Rush. Guests have also reported the sound of horses’ hooves in the alley behind the hotel, where no horses have stood for a century.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for a fourth-floor room; at night, listen at a back-facing window for the hoofbeats in the alley.
Where to look None well documented here; the famous stories belong to the nearby Nob Hill Inn
Reported ghosts Stories of 22 prankster spirits belong to the Nob Hill Inn at 1000 Pine St (closed 2023)
The Nob Hill Hotel is a Victorian-style hotel of about fifty small rooms at 835 Hyde Street, dating from 1906 and restored in 1998 with marble floors, stained glass, chandeliers and antiques, plus a slow vintage elevator, continental breakfast and an evening wine reception. It is two blocks from the California Street cable car and about fifteen minutes on foot from Union Square.
Many ghost guides, including our own older one, gave this address for the haunted Nob Hill Inn, said to hold 22 prankster spirits in 21 rooms. That Inn is a different building at 1000 Pine Street, and it stopped taking guests in January 2023. We found no published ghost stories that belong to the Hyde Street hotel, so book it for its old-world charm rather than its ghosts.
Haunted Rooms tip: Want a confirmed haunted stay instead? The Queen Anne Hotel’s Room 410 is about a mile west.
Closed since 2020. The building was used as pandemic housing, never reopened as a hotel and sold at auction in 2025 with no reopening date. Stay at the Chancellor Hotel two blocks up Powell Street instead.
Removed from this guide: We dropped the short “other notable” list (Hotel Whitcomb, Stanyan Park Hotel, the Cartwright, the InterContinental Mark Hopkins, the Warwick and the Westin St. Francis), since we could not find specific, published stories for them. Hotel Union Square has closed and now appears in its own section. Added back: the Fairmont San Francisco, with its tour legends clearly framed as legend (the Flora Sommerton story belongs to California Street outside). Corrected: the Hotel Rex is now Hotel Emblem; the Nob Hill Inn now trades as the Nob Hill Hotel.
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The Queen Anne Hotel on Sutter Street. Built in 1890 as Miss Mary Lake’s School for Girls, it is known for the headmistress’s ghost in Room 410, her old office, and guests describe her tucking them in at night.
Can you book a haunted room in San Francisco?
Yes. Room 410 at the Queen Anne, Room 407 at the Hotel Majestic and Rooms 33 and 42 at the San Remo are ordinary guest rooms that can be requested by number. Book a stay, then call the hotel; requests are never guaranteed.
Is the Palace Hotel haunted?
It has more ghost stories than almost any hotel in the city: a woman in red who visits men traveling alone, a French girl asking for soup in the kitchen, a shoulder-tapper in the Pied Piper Bar and a figure some say resembles President Harding, who died there in 1923.
Is Hotel Union Square still open?
No. Hotel Union Square on Powell Street, known for its Room 207 ghost and the Golden Bubble speakeasy, housed unhoused residents during the pandemic, never reopened and was sold at auction in 2025.
Is the Hotel Rex the same as the Hotel Emblem?
Yes. The Hotel Rex on Sutter Street was rebranded as Hotel Emblem. Its ghost stories, a man seen by housekeepers on the fourth floor and hoofbeats in the alley, belong to the same building.
Is the Fairmont San Francisco haunted?
Only by legend. San Francisco ghost tours and haunted lists say the Fair sisters who built it still check on guests, and tell of a friendly woman in a guest room, soldiers on the seventh floor and a haunted staircase to the Penthouse, but the hotel does not promote these stories and no specific sighting has been published. The nearby Flora Sommerton legend belongs to California Street, not the hotel. See our Fairmont guide.
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.
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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.
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