Haunted hotel guide · Seattle, Washington

Haunted Hotel Sorrento, Seattle: Room 408, the Fourth Floor and the Ghost Linked to Alice B. Toklas

Seattle’s grand Italianate hotel on First Hill has been taking guests since 1909, and for decades they have reported a woman in vintage dress on the fourth floor, most often near Room 408.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate hotels

4.0/5Haunted Rooms Score
1909Year opened
Room 408Most requested room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

Hotel Sorrento sits on Madison Street on First Hill, an Italian Renaissance hotel of dark brick and terra cotta wrapped around a courtyard with palm trees. It opened in 1909, is a Seattle Landmark and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2021. It has 76 rooms and suites and the wood-paneled Fireside Room, and it is the best-known of the haunted hotels in Seattle.

The ghost most often reported is a woman in turn-of-the-century dress on the fourth floor, especially around Room 408. Many people link her to Alice B. Toklas, the writer and longtime partner of Gertrude Stein, who lived nearby as a teenager. It is a story with a gap in it, because Toklas had left Seattle before the hotel opened, and we explain that below. The hotel’s owners talk openly about what guests report, and in October the Sorrento leans into its reputation.

Hotel Sorrento at a glance

4.0/5
Haunted Rooms Score
Haunted reputation4
History4
Ghost hunter access4
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
  • Address 900 Madison St, Seattle, WA 98104, on First Hill
  • Opened 1909; designed by Harlan Thomas for clothier Samuel Rosenberg; Seattle Landmark (2010) and National Register (2021)
  • Most haunted spots The fourth floor and Room 408, the Fireside Room bar, the front patio
  • Best-known ghosts A woman in turn-of-the-century dress, often said to be Alice B. Toklas
  • Booking the haunted room There is no haunted room package. Request Room 408 or the fourth floor when you book; it is a request, not a guarantee.
  • Good to know 76 rooms and suites. STELLA serves Italian food and the Fireside Room has live piano. The hotel runs Halloween events such as witches’ teas in October.

Check availability

The ghosts of Hotel Sorrento

The woman on the fourth floor

Staff and guests describe a woman in turn-of-the-century clothing in the halls, sometimes in white and sometimes in black. Most sightings are on the fourth floor, the floor of the seven-story hotel with the most reported activity, according to co-owner Barbara Malone.

Guests also describe lights flickering all the way down the hallway at once, and soft piano music drifting down from a floor above when no one is playing.

Room 408

Room 408 is the room most people ask for. Guests have reported a woman humming in the bathroom, the feeling of someone sitting down on the edge of the bed, and lights that flicker together.

Why 408? The hotel’s local story is that it sits roughly where young Alice Toklas would have had a view of Puget Sound from her family’s home, though the building has been remodeled many times and there is no record tying her to a room.

Is it Alice B. Toklas?

Alice B. Toklas was born in San Francisco and moved to First Hill with her family as a teenager in the 1890s, studying music at the University of Washington. She later wrote that her years in Seattle were among the happiest of her life. She went on to Paris, where she lived with Gertrude Stein for nearly 40 years, wrote cookbooks and died in 1967.

The problem with the legend is timing: Toklas moved back to San Francisco at least ten years before the Sorrento opened, and she likely never visited it. She is buried beside Stein in Paris. Believers say she returned to the place she was happiest; skeptics note that a famous name makes a good ghost story. Either way, the woman in vintage dress is what guests describe.

Drinks that move in the bar

In the hotel’s bar, long known as the Dunbar Room and now the Fireside Room, guests and bartenders have described drinks moving or vanishing and wine glasses sliding along the bar.

Ross Allison, founder of the paranormal group AGHOST, told the Seattle Times that the bar is “supposedly haunted” but said he had not investigated there himself.

Footprints on the patio

The patio at the main entrance was once a large garden. Staff have reported footprints appearing there when no one had been outside.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

  • Room 408: The room most linked to the ghost: humming, a weight on the bed and flickering lights.
  • The fourth floor: The floor with the most reports, including the woman in vintage dress and lights that dim down the hall.
  • The Fireside Room: The octagonal bar with original 1909 paneling and green Rookwood tile, where drinks are said to move. Live piano most evenings.
  • The front patio: Built over the old garden, where footprints have been seen with no one outside.

History of Hotel Sorrento

Samuel Rosenberg, a Seattle clothier, built the Sorrento in 1909, the year Seattle hosted the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. He hired architect Harlan Thomas, who gave the hotel an Italianate design with a U-shaped plan around a courtyard and a top-floor dining room with views of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains.

The hotel struggled financially from the start, and in 1910 Rosenberg traded it for a 240-acre orchard in Oregon’s Rogue River Valley. Through the 1960s it operated as a luxury apartment hotel.

The Malone family bought the Sorrento in the 1980s and fully renovated it, restoring it as a boutique hotel. It was designated a Seattle Landmark on May 14, 2010, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.

Its haunted reputation grew in the 2010s. USA Today included the Sorrento in a 2015 list of the most haunted hotels, and Seattle press has returned to the story most Octobers since.

Tips for a haunted stay

  • Request Room 408 or a fourth-floor room when you book, and ask again at check-in.
  • Spend the evening in the Fireside Room. It has original wood paneling and live piano, and it is where drinks are said to move on their own.
  • Visit in October for the hotel’s witches’ teas and murder mystery dinner; tickets sell through the hotel website.
  • First Hill is steep. If you are walking from downtown, allow extra time, or take the First Hill streetcar.
  • Pair your stay with a night at the Arctic Club Hotel downtown, where elevators are said to stop on the fifth floor by themselves.

Want to investigate, not just sleep?

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.

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Frequently asked questions

Is Hotel Sorrento in Seattle haunted?

It has one of the best-known ghost stories in Seattle. Staff and guests report a woman in turn-of-the-century dress, mostly on the fourth floor near Room 408, along with flickering lights, humming, and drinks that move in the bar.

Who haunts Hotel Sorrento?

The ghost is usually linked to Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein’s partner, who lived nearby on First Hill as a teenager. She left Seattle before the hotel opened in 1909, so the connection is a legend rather than history.

Can you book Room 408 at Hotel Sorrento?

You can request it when you book. It is a regular guest room, not a haunted package, so it is not guaranteed.

When was Hotel Sorrento built?

It opened in 1909, built by clothier Samuel Rosenberg and designed by architect Harlan Thomas.

Did Alice B. Toklas die at Hotel Sorrento?

No. She died in Paris in 1967 and is buried beside Gertrude Stein there. Her link to the hotel is that she lived nearby as a teenager in the 1890s.

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. 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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