The Haunted Argonaut Hotel, San Francisco: Footsteps at Fisherman's Wharf

The Argonaut Hotel fills the Haslett Warehouse, a four-story brick and timber building at the foot of Hyde Street that was once part of the largest fruit and vegetable cannery in the world. Since 2003 it has been a nautical-themed hotel with exposed brick and old ship’s timbers, and it is the only hotel inside San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. The historic ships of the Hyde Street Pier are moored just across the street. It is one of the newer additions to our guide to haunted hotels in San Francisco.

Its ghost stories come from guests rather than legend. People describe the sound of children running down the corridor around 3 a.m. with nobody there, heavy footsteps from empty rooms above and beds that seem to shift. The hotel’s own managing director once told a travel magazine about a couple so sure a ghost had followed them that the front desk waived their bill.

The ghosts of Argonaut Hotel

Children running at 3 a.m.

The most specific account comes from a guest from London who wrote about her stay on Tripadvisor and was later quoted by InsideHook. Her husband heard children running up and down the corridor at about 3 a.m., and when he looked, the hall was empty. Her son, in a separate room, had experiences that badly frightened him, and she says she barely slept.

Similar reports have followed: running footsteps in the corridor, giggling and the sense that a group of children is playing just out of sight. Nobody has connected them to any recorded event in the building.

Footsteps from the floor above

Other guests describe heavy footsteps overhead, as if someone in boots were pacing an empty room, even though the floors above are carpeted. Some say their bed seemed to move or shift in the night. In an old warehouse of brick and timber, some of this may be the building itself; the guests who report it are not convinced.

The couple who were followed

Tony Roumph, an area managing director for the hotel’s parent company, Noble House Hotels and Resorts, told InsideHook about an incident from shortly before he took up the role. A frightened couple came down to the front desk insisting that a ghost had followed them and that they wanted to leave. The desk agent apologized and removed all charges from their bill. “We truly believe the guest is always right, even when it’s taken to extremes,” he said.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Upper-floor corridors: Where the running children are heard, usually in the early hours.
• Guest rooms on the upper floors: Reports of footsteps overhead and beds that seem to move.
• The Hyde Street Pier: Not in the hotel, but across the street: the park’s historic ships creak at their moorings at night and make an atmospheric late walk.

History of Argonaut Hotel

The California Fruit Canners Association, the company that later became Del Monte, built the warehouse between 1907 and 1909 as part of its huge cannery complex at the edge of the bay. The architect was William Mooser. At the time it was billed as the largest fruit and vegetable cannery in the world. Canning in the complex ended in 1939, and the building was used as a warehouse into the early 1960s, when the neighboring cannery was turned into shops and restaurants.

San Francisco declared the Haslett Warehouse a city landmark (No. 59) in 1974, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The National Park Service acquired it in 1978, and it became part of San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park when the park was created in 1988. It also sits within the Aquatic Park Historic District, a National Historic Landmark District.

The park leased the building to a Kimpton affiliate to turn it into a hotel, with the rent supporting the park’s historic ships. A fire gutted the empty interior in 2002 and delayed the project, but the Argonaut opened in 2003 with 252 rooms and the park’s Maritime Visitor Center on the ground floor. Noble House Hotels and Resorts now runs it, and all the rooms were refreshed in spring 2025.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book an upper-floor room if you want to be where the footsteps are reported.
• Walk out to the Hyde Street Pier and Aquatic Park after dark; the old ships are right across the street.
• Visit the National Park Service visitor center on the ground floor for the story of the waterfront and the cannery.
• Budget for the daily amenities fee and valet parking, and consider a cable car instead of a car.
• Combine your stay with a night at the Queen Anne Hotel and a night tour of Alcatraz.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Queen Anne Hotel: Miss Mary Lake’s Victorian school for girls
• Claremont Hotel, Berkeley: the haunted Room 422 across the bay
• Alcatraz: the island prison, visible from the wharf
• Haunted places in San Francisco: more ghost stories across the city
• Haunted hotels in California
• Haunted hotels in San Francisco

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.

• InsideHook: The 5 most haunted hotels in San Francisco
• Argonaut Hotel: official information
• Bay Crossings: Hotel in historic Fisherman's Wharf warehouse to open
• NoeHill: Haslett Warehouse, National Register of Historic Places

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.