Haunted hotel guide · Riverside, California

The Haunted Mission Inn, Riverside: The Millers Who Never Checked Out

A block-long fantasy of domes, cloisters and chapels built by one man over three decades, where guests say the family that built it still walks the fourth floor.

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

3.0/5Haunted Rooms Score

1876Original adobe built

238Rooms and suites

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Mission Inn fills an entire block of downtown Riverside: towers, arcades, a rotunda, courtyards, a chapel with Tiffany windows and passages that wind through four wings in a mix of Mission Revival, Spanish and Asian styles. It grew from a small adobe boarding house of 1876 into one of the most remarkable hotels in America, and it is a National Historic Landmark. It is one of the grandest entries in our guide to haunted hotels in California.

Most of its ghost stories point to the Miller family who built it. Guests and staff describe singing from empty rooms, small blue lights drifting through the corridors, unseen hands on the shoulder and figures in the hallways. Frank Miller and his sister Alice are the names most often given, and the fourth-floor rooms where they lived, along with the Bridal Suite across the hall, have the busiest reputation.

The ghosts of The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa

Frank Miller

Frank Miller spent more than thirty years turning his father’s boarding house into the Mission Inn, filling it with bells, crosses, art and curiosities from his travels. He died in 1935, and many people who work at the inn believe he never really left. Staff describe a man walking the halls near his old fourth-floor rooms, and some guests say they have felt someone sit on the end of the bed at night.

Alice and the fourth floor

Alice, Frank’s sister, lived in rooms on the fourth floor, and her old room has become the inn’s best-known spot for ghost hunters. Visitors report sudden cold spots, the feeling of being touched and, in some accounts, a woman singing in the empty suite. Guests have asked staff about a woman in an old-fashioned dress they met in the corridor.

The Bridal Suite staircase

Across the hall from Alice’s room is the Bridal or Honeymoon Suite, with a spiral staircase inside. It is said to be especially active. According to Riverside’s LocalWiki, a couple fled the hotel in 1993 after saying they were pushed on the stairs by something they could not see. Brides have told of glimpsing a woman in period clothing in the mirror who is not there when they turn around.

Singing, blue lights and touches

Throughout the inn, guests and staff describe singing from rooms that turn out to be empty, small blue lights floating through the air and being touched or gently pushed by unseen hands. Legends of America adds apparitions seen in the hallways, near the dining room ceiling and around a storage building behind the hotel. The Cloister Wing, with its arched corridors, is known for footsteps, whispers and cold spots.

Figures below ground

Below the inn are passages known as the catacombs. Some visitors claim to have seen robed figures there that vanish when approached. These are among the least documented of the inn’s stories, and you can judge for yourself on a history tour.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Alice Miller's fourth-floor rooms: The most investigated spot in the inn: cold spots, touches and singing.
• The Bridal Suite: Across the hall from Alice’s rooms, with the spiral staircase where guests say they were pushed.
• The Cloister Wing: Arched corridors with footsteps and whispers, above the catacombs.
• The dining room and hallways: Where apparitions are reported near the ceiling and along the corridors.
• The Presidential Lounge: Theodore Roosevelt’s 1903 suite, now a bar where Nixon was married.

History of The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa

In 1876 Christopher Miller built a two-story adobe boarding house on this block called the Glenwood Cottage. His son Frank bought it in 1880. In 1902 Frank began rebuilding it as a grand Mission Revival hotel, with architects Arthur B. Benton, Myron Hunt and G. Stanley Wilson, and the first wing opened in 1903. More wings followed over the next three decades, each in a different style drawn from Frank’s travels in Europe and Asia, and by 1931 the inn had four wings, a rotunda, the St. Francis Chapel with its seven Tiffany windows, and a famous collection of bells and art.

Presidents came early. Theodore Roosevelt stayed in May 1903 in a two-story suite that is now the Presidential Lounge. William Howard Taft visited for a banquet in 1909, and the oversized chair made for his visit is one of the inn’s curiosities. Richard Nixon married Pat Ryan in the presidential suite in 1940, partly because it cost less than the chapel, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent their wedding night here in 1952. In all, ten presidents have visited.

Frank Miller died in 1935, and his family ran the inn until 1956, when it was sold to Benjamin Swig. Much of the collection was sold off, and the inn passed through several owners and spells as dorm rooms and apartments. The Friends of the Mission Inn formed in 1969 to protect it, the city’s redevelopment agency bought it in 1976, and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

In 1985 the inn closed for a long and costly renovation, and it then sat empty through a bankruptcy. Local businessman Duane Roberts bought it and reopened it in late 1992, and the Reagans returned for the reopening gala in 1993. Today the Mission Inn Hotel and Spa has 238 rooms and suites, six restaurants and lounges, and the Festival of Lights each winter, when the whole building is covered in lights.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for a fourth-floor room in the older part of the inn, or book the Bridal Suite if you want the staircase.
• Take the hotel’s history tour to see the St. Francis Chapel, the bells and the parts of the building you would otherwise walk past.
• Have a drink in the Presidential Lounge, Theodore Roosevelt’s old suite, and find Nixon’s portrait in the bar.
• Book well ahead for the Festival of Lights (November 21, 2026 to January 3, 2027); rooms and parking fill fast.
• Make it a road trip with the Queen Mary in Long Beach or the Hollywood Roosevelt.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Queen Mary: the haunted ocean liner in Long Beach
• Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel: Marilyn Monroe’s mirror
• Haunted places in Riverside: more ghost stories around the city
• Calico Ghost Town: a restored silver mining town out in the Mojave
• Haunted hotels in California

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.

• The Mission Inn Hotel and Spa: official site
• LocalWiki Riverside: The Mission Inn
• LAist: Historic Riverside hotel holds many presidential tales
• Legends of America: Sleeping With Ghosts in California
• Mosaic Traveler: Historic California hotel spans an entire city block
• When In Your State: The Mission Inn's haunted rooms

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