Haunted hotel guide · St. Andrews by-the-Sea, New Brunswick

The Haunted Algonquin Resort: The Weeping Bride of Room 473

A Tudor-style seaside resort on Passamaquoddy Bay that cheerfully admits some of its guests never want to leave, and says it takes them at their word.

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

4.0/5Haunted Rooms Score

1889Year opened

Room 473The bride's room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Algonquin Resort is often called the most haunted place in New Brunswick. The grand hotel on the hill above St. Andrews by-the-Sea has welcomed summer guests since 1889, survived a devastating fire in 1914, and collected a cast of ghosts along the way: a weeping bride, a bellhop who will not take a tip, a night watchman with a ring of keys and a little boy chasing a ball.

Unlike many grand hotels, the Algonquin is happy to talk about its spirits. Its history has included the line that when guests claim they never want to leave, the hotel takes them seriously, and staff have run ghost tours of the building. The local archives, though, have found no records behind the stories, and we cover that too.

The ghosts of The Algonquin Resort St. Andrews by-the-Sea, Autograph Collection

The bride of Room 473

The Algonquin’s most famous ghost is a young bride. The story goes that she checked in to Room 473 on the eve of her wedding to a fisherman, who went to sea and never came back. Whether he was lost or simply left her is never settled. She is said to have wept through the day and into what should have been her wedding night, and in the darkest version a bellman found her dead in the room.

Guests and staff report hearing sobbing from Room 473 when it is empty, and she has been seen at the windows of the hotel’s tower, a part of the building closed to guests for years. One bellhop told a reporter that a guest next door in Room 471 complained of crying through the wall; when he checked, Room 473 was empty and the front desk said nobody was booked into it. There is also a lighter local joke that couples who stay in 473 tend to bicker.

The bellhop who will not take a tip

Several versions exist of a helpful bellhop. In one he meets guests, shows them to their room while chatting about the hotel’s history, and is gone when they turn to tip him. In another he wears a beige coat, rides the main elevator and recommends restaurants on Water Street that closed long ago. When guests ask the front desk about him, they are told no bellman works the elevator. Some guests have taken to leaving a tip on the bell desk for him anyway.

The night watchman

A former security man who lived in the staff quarters is said to still make his rounds. Staff say you know he is near when you hear keys jingling in an empty corridor, and his route is said to take in the kitchen and an old service tunnel.

The woman in the dining room and the boy with the ball

A woman believed to have been a senior member of staff is reported setting and rearranging the tables in the dining room after it has been laid. Guests also describe a small boy, sometimes called Ben, running and laughing in the halls. Legend says he chased a red ball out of an open upper window. An old photograph kept in the building is said to show his silhouette.

The piano and other odd happenings

A piano that survived the 1914 fire is said to play by itself at night, and guests in rooms on the second floor have complained about music when the instrument was locked. Other reports include doorknobs turning on their own on the second floor, objects going missing on the fourth floor, activity in Rooms 308 and 373, and calls to the switchboard from empty rooms.

What the records say

When a reporter asked the Charlotte County Archives to check the stories, the archives manager found no newspaper reports, death certificates or accident records to support any of them. She could find no trace of the bride story before 2005, and it does not appear in a 2005 book on the hotel’s history. The watchman and bellhop stories are older. None of that stops the tales being told, but it is worth knowing they are legends rather than history.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 473: The bride’s room on the fourth floor. Request it when you book; it is a normal guest room, so it cannot be guaranteed.
• Rooms 471, 308 and 373: 471 is next door to the bride’s room and is where crying was reported through the wall. 308 and 373 come up in lists of active rooms.
• The tower: Closed to guests, but you can look up at its windows from the lawn after dark, where the bride is said to appear.
• The dining room and lobby piano: The phantom table-setter works the dining room, and the fire-surviving piano is the source of the music stories.

History of The Algonquin Resort St. Andrews by-the-Sea, Autograph Collection

The Algonquin was the project of the St. Andrews Land Company, formed in 1883 by American investors who saw the potential of a seaside resort on Passamaquoddy Bay. The original wooden Shingle Style hotel opened in June 1889 with 80 guest rooms, designed by a Boston firm. Guests came for the cool Bay of Fundy air and saltwater baths pumped up from the bay.

The Canadian Pacific Railway president William Van Horne summered there in 1890 and went on to build his estate on nearby Minister’s Island. In 1903 the railway bought the hotel, added golf courses and made it part of its chain of grand hotels. Two new wings followed in 1908 and 1912.

On April 11, 1914, fire destroyed the original wooden hotel. Only the two newer wings and the tower survived. Canadian Pacific rebuilt on the same footprint in concrete, in the Tudor Revival style still seen today, to designs by the Montreal architects Barott, Blackadder and Webster. The new hotel was ready for guests the following summer.

Over the years the Algonquin hosted presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and nearly every Canadian prime minister. Canadian Pacific sold it in 1970, the province of New Brunswick leased and then bought it, and Fairmont managed it until the end of 2011.

New owners restored the hotel in 2012 and reopened it in 2013 as the first Canadian hotel in Marriott’s Autograph Collection. InnVest Hotels bought the resort and its golf course in 2023. Today it has about 235 rooms.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for Room 473 when you book, or for 471 next door if you would rather listen through the wall.
• After dark, walk out onto the front lawn and look up at the tower windows, where the bride is said to stand.
• Ask at the front desk whether staff ghost tours are running during your stay; they have been offered in the past but do not appear to be a fixed program.
• Leave a coin on the bell desk for the bellhop who never collects his tips. It is a local tradition.
• Independent ghost walks have run in St. Andrews itself, starting on Water Street in town. Check locally for current dates.
• The resort is busiest in July and August. Shoulder season stays in late spring or fall are quieter and moodier.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Marathon Inn, Grand Manan: an island inn in the Bay of Fundy with its own ghost stories
• Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City: another Canadian Pacific castle hotel with a famous resident ghost
• Haunted hotels in Canada

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.

• Wikipedia: The Algonquin Resort
• Superstitious Times: Saint Andrews' Algonquin Resort keeps its ghost lore in house
• NUVO: Canadian urban legends, New Brunswick's haunted hotel
• Slice: haunted hotels in Canada
• Burnaby Now: 5 haunted hotel experiences in Canada

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