The Haunted Laguna Vista Lodge, Eagle Nest: A Self-Playing Piano and a Bride in a Dance Hall Dress

The Laguna Vista Lodge sits on the main road through Eagle Nest, a small mountain town in the Moreno Valley of northern New Mexico, on the Enchanted Circle loop between Taos, Angel Fire and Red River. It began in 1898 as the El Monte Hotel, and its saloon was one of the busiest in the valley in the 1920s and 1930s. Today it runs as a lodge, historic restaurant and saloon, with a covered boardwalk out front.

Locals have long called the old saloon the Guney, and staff have plenty of ghost stories to go with it: a dining room piano that plays itself, a chair that keeps moving back to the piano, pots flying off the kitchen walls, and a woman in a dance hall dress who vanishes toward a hidden staircase. The owner says the building is haunted, though he has never seen a spirit himself. It is one of the most rustic haunted hotels in New Mexico, and here is what you need to know.

The ghosts of the Laguna Vista

The bride in the dance hall dress

Customers and staff describe a woman in a dance hall dress who appears in the old building and then disappears toward a hidden staircase. The story told in Eagle Nest is that she came here as a bride on her honeymoon. Her husband went out hunting and never came back, and she was left with nothing. She stayed on and worked as a saloon girl, and her spirit is said to be still looking for him.

She has no name in the stories, and there is no record of who she was. But she is the ghost most people mean when they talk about the Laguna Vista.

The piano and the chair

A former manager named Jim told Legends of America that the piano in the dining room sometimes plays with no one near it. A dining chair is often found pulled up beside the piano, as if someone had sat down to play. Staff put it back at its table, and later it is back at the piano again.

One employee working in the kitchen also heard a vacuum cleaner running in the empty dining room. When she went to look, the vacuum was standing still and silent.

The cook and the kitchen

Kristi Dukes, who cooked here in 1999, said the kitchen stayed calm as long as she played classic rock or country music. When she put on rap, things went wrong: a marble rolling pin was thrown at her, and pots and pans fell from the walls. Once the stereo kept playing after she switched it off and unplugged it, even though it had no batteries.

"The lady told me to stop making noise"

The story that stays with people is about Kristi’s two-year-old daughter, Rayni, who came to work with bells on her shoes. Rayni walked into the kitchen looking unsettled and said, “The lady told me to stop making noise.” She pointed toward the dining room, at someone her mother could not see, and insisted the bells come off.

Owner Bert Clemens has said he believes the building is haunted, though he has never seen anything himself. A psychic who visited is said to have counted at least 22 spirits.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The dining room: Home of the self-playing piano and the wandering chair. Have dinner here and keep an eye on it.
• The kitchen: Where the pans fell and the rolling pin flew. Not open to guests, but staff may share their own stories.
• The old saloon: The 1898 bar, the Guney, once one of the busiest saloons in the valley. Look for the old railroad ties said to be built into the building.
• The hidden staircase: Where the woman in the dance hall dress is said to vanish. Ask staff where to look.

History of Laguna Vista Lodge

The story of how the hotel was built is a legend in itself. A would-be innkeeper spent two summers hauling railroad ties from Ute Park toward Elizabethtown, the gold rush town just to the north, to build a hotel. When he came back after the winter, the ties were gone, and a new hotel had gone up in the settlement of Therma, which took the name Eagle Nest in the 1930s. That was the El Monte, finished in 1898. Legends of America says some of those ties are still visible in certain rooms, though the stolen-ties tale is told rather than documented.

Behind the saloon were a 17-foot hand-dug well and several icehouses. In the 1920s and 1930s it was one of the busiest saloons in the area, a stop for politicians heading to the horse races in Raton. Around this time it became the Laguna Vista Lodge, run by Gene and Pearl Wilson, who are said to have gone armed when they carried the gambling takings from the saloon to their living quarters.

In the early 1950s Bob and Edith Sullivan bought the property and leased the restaurant to Walter Ragsdale. As tourism grew around Eagle Nest Lake, the village could not supply enough staff, so the Sullivans advertised for college girls to come and work the summers, and in 1964 they built a newer hotel building beside the original to take more guests. Edith ran the Laguna Vista for about 20 years, was grand marshal of the town’s July 4th parade in 2003 and died in 2004. Her son Robert served Eagle Nest for more than 25 years as fire chief, councilor and mayor.

Bert Clemens bought the lodge from the Sullivans in 1971, and Legends of America, updated in 2026, says he still owns it. Under his ownership it was rated the best restaurant and hotel in the valley by Frommer’s, featured in Sunset magazine in January 2002 and on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2005. Bert and his wife Karel also appeared on the Travel Channel’s Resort Rescue, where host Shane Green suggested room packages and new bedding; the follow-up reported bookings up and the couple taking their first vacation in more than 35 years.

Today the lodge still calls itself a historic restaurant and saloon, with a covered boardwalk, saloon events and rooms in both the old and newer buildings. Across the street, Julio’s, once a gambling spot, has a ghost story of its own: a woman who is said to dislike men and to play tricks on those who come through the old front door.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Call the lodge to book; online booking has been unavailable while it changes reservation systems.
• Eat in the dining room and watch the piano; it is the heart of the ghost stories.
• Ask about the hidden staircase and the bride in the dance hall dress.
• Bring warm layers. Eagle Nest sits high in the Moreno Valley and nights are cold even in summer.
• Drive east through Cimarron Canyon to the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, the most famous haunted hotel in the region, about 30 minutes away.

More haunted hotels nearby

• St. James Hotel, Cimarron: the Wild West hotel with the locked Room 18, down Cimarron Canyon
• Plaza Hotel, Las Vegas: an 1882 hotel with a haunted Room 310
• La Fonda on the Plaza, Santa Fe: Santa Fe’s historic inn at the end of the trail
• The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park: Colorado’s most famous haunted hotel, if you are heading north
• Haunted hotels in New Mexico

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.

• Legends of America: The ghost of the Guney, Eagle Nest
• Laguna Vista Lodge: official site
• Reality TV Revisited: Laguna Vista Lodge on Resort Rescue
• Wikipedia: Eagle Nest, New Mexico
• Only In Your State: Haunted hotels in New Mexico

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