The Haunted Ocean Key Resort & Spa, Key West

Ocean Key Resort & Spa sits at the very end of Duval Street, beside Mallory Square, with the Sunset Pier stretching into the harbor. It is a modern, upscale waterfront resort with about 100 rooms and suites, all with balconies. It is also an odd entry on any haunted list, because the building only dates from the early 1980s, though the pier beside it goes back to the 1830s.

The stories center on one third-floor suite overlooking Duval Street. Guests describe sighs and jingling keys, cold spots, a weight settling on the edge of the bed and belongings rearranged overnight. The owners deny there is any ghost, and nobody has tied the reports to a death in the building. Some people believe the presence belongs to the land rather than the resort.

The ghosts of Ocean Key Resort

The sighing presence on the third floor

Most accounts come from a single third-floor suite with a view up Duval Street. Guests describe wistful sighs and a voice that sounds full of regret, jingling keys when nobody is moving, and cold spots that drift around the room even in daylight.

Others describe the feeling of someone sitting close by, including a weight settling on the edge of the bed. Items left on the bureau are found rearranged in the morning, and lights and curtains are found switched or moved when guests come back to the room.

The ransacked room

One account, collected by HauntedHouses.com, comes from a couple who stayed in 2015. They returned to find the balcony’s French doors open and their room turned over, yet the front desk said nobody had been in and nothing was missing. Later in the stay, around 3 a.m., one of them heard a loud clap right beside their ear, felt a chill and sensed someone in the room.

Whose ghost?

Nobody knows, and the resort’s owners deny that any spirit haunts the suite. Theories include a spirit disturbed when the old waterfront was cleared, a former time-share owner, or a past guest who objects to whoever is in the room. The site’s long working life as a navy pier, coal dock, ferry dock and turtle and shark trading post gives storytellers plenty to work with, but no death has been tied to the building.

Elsewhere in the resort

Roadtrippers’ Key West ghost guide adds reports of cold spots moving along the floor, voices and footsteps at night, unexplained lights and objects moving in rooms. These are general guest accounts rather than tied to a specific room.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Third-floor suites facing Duval Street: The rooms at the center of the stories. The resort does not name a room number, so ask for this floor and view.
• The bureau and balcony doors: Where moved items and open French doors are most often reported.
• Sunset Pier: Not haunted, but the best seat in Key West at sunset and only steps from the lobby.

History of Ocean Key Resort & Spa

Long before the resort, this was Key West’s working waterfront. The resort’s own history says a pier was built here in the late 1830s, soon after the island was settled, because deep water ran close to shore. It served the Navy in the Civil War, became a coal dock when steam replaced sail, and was a loading dock for men and horses bound for Cuba in the Spanish-American War. Later it was a ferry dock and a base for the turtle and shark trades and the cigar industry, before the land fell derelict and sat empty for years.

After the 1935 hurricane wrecked Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad, some of its ties were bolted to the pier as bumpers, and they stayed until Hurricane Irma in 2017. The pier was rebuilt on concrete pylons in 2018 and is now the resort’s Sunset Pier bar.

The first modern building on the site was Reflections, a 68-unit time-share high-rise (the resort dates it to 1981, HauntedHouses.com to 1982). In 1989 it was converted into a 100-room hotel, the Ocean Key House Hotel, and petroleum was found under the property, an expensive surprise for the owners. In the 1990s the owners added a marina and renamed it the Ocean Key House Suite and Marina.

Noble House bought the property in 1998, and in 2005 it opened the SpaTerre spa and took its current name, Ocean Key Resort & Spa. Today it is owned by Noble House Hotels & Resorts and is part of the Curator Hotel & Resort Collection, with Hot Tin Roof and Sunset Pier restaurants, a pool bar and a recent renovation of its rooms and lobby. U.S. News & World Report ranked it the best resort in Key West in 2022 and 2025.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for the third floor facing Duval Street if you want to test the stories. Third-party sites will not let you choose, so call after booking.
• Leave something on the bureau. It is the classic test guests describe.
• Do not expect a ghost tour pitch. The resort denies the stories, so keep your questions light at the front desk.
• Pair it with an old house. Key West’s older haunted inns, like Marrero’s and Old Town Manor, are a short walk away.
• Browse our haunted hotels in Key West for more choices.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Marrero's Guest Mansion, Key West: Enriquetta’s vow and Key West’s best-known haunted inn
• The Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables: Miami’s most haunted hotel, on the way to or from the Keys
• Haunted places in Miami: for a night on the mainland
• Haunted hotels in Florida
• Haunted hotels in Key West

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.

• Ocean Key Resort & Spa (official site)
• Ocean Key Resort: About and history
• HauntedHouses.com: Key West Ocean Key Resort
• Roadtrippers: Ghost Guide to Key West
• Ocean Key History (resort page)

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