The Haunted Shaffer Hotel, Mountainair: Pop Shaffer's Folk Art Hotel and Its Ghosts

The Shaffer Hotel stands on Main Street in Mountainair, a small farming town in the Manzano Mountains foothills about 90 minutes southeast of Albuquerque. It is like nowhere else in the state. Blacksmith Clem “Pop” Shaffer built it in 1923 out of cast concrete and scrap iron, then covered it inside and out with his own carved and painted folk art, from the dining room ceiling to the fence outside. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and the state register of cultural properties.

It also has a reputation as one of the most active haunted hotels in New Mexico. Most reports name Pop and his wife Lena: lights switching on and off, taps running, footsteps in empty halls and a woman’s voice in the lobby. Paranormal teams have spent nights here, and one reported the smell of chocolate in a room that had been empty all winter. Here is what is told, what the records say and how to plan a visit.

The ghosts of the Shaffer Hotel

Pop and Lena Shaffer

The most consistent reports are of the builder and his wife. Guests and staff describe lights turning on and off by themselves, water taps running when no one is near them, personal items moving overnight and footsteps directly behind them in empty hallways. A confrontational woman’s voice has been heard from the lobby when nobody is there, and it is often put down to Lena.

Pop is said to favor the Abo Suite. In September 2019 the Albuquerque Journal followed the Duke City Paranormal Research Society, led by Ed and Sara Sather, on an investigation here with several other teams. They asked “Are you with us, Pop Shaffer?” and reported their meter going off during about ten minutes of yes and no questions.

Room 16

Room 16 is often called the most haunted room in the hotel. The best-known story is about a father who booked it for a Halloween stay, with his daughters in the adjoining room. He woke in the night with a sudden chill and saw the outline of a body on the bed. When he tried to reach his daughters, the connecting door would not open from either side. By morning the family had checked out, leaving money behind.

The Abo Suite and the last breath

The Abo Suite is linked to a former owner who is said to have died there before the 2004 sale. Investigators who spent a night in the closed hotel say they recorded an EVP in the suite that they describe as someone’s last breath.

The chocolate room and other reports

An overnight investigation by a New Mexico paranormal group, with the hotel closed to guests, produced the hotel’s strangest story: a strong smell of chocolate in a first-floor room that had stood empty all winter, without even linens on the bed. The team also reported a meter falling from a table on camera in an empty room, high readings in two rooms above the kitchen storage, and a dark shape on the ceiling of a connecting hallway. These accounts come from a 2026 feature, which itself notes that meter readings and recordings are not accepted scientific evidence.

Other figures turn up in the stories too: a large woman dressed all in white moving through the halls, a woman cooking in the kitchen after hours, and the laughter of a little girl with no child in the building. One tale of a cowboy who hanged himself in the bathroom between Rooms 17 and 18 is shaky, as researcher Cody Polston has pointed out that bathroom was only built in the 2005 remodel. None of this is proof of anything, and the hotel’s ghost stories only began to be published after it reopened in 2005, but they are told with real enthusiasm.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 16: The room with the most reports, including the Halloween story of the stuck connecting door.
• The Abo Suite: Said to be Pop Shaffer’s favorite and the site of the last-breath recording.
• The east upstairs hallway: Former owner Joel Marks called it the most active spot in the building; it sits above the painted dining room ceiling.
• The Wedding Suite hallway: Where Marks described a dark presence that pressed against his face like a strong wind.
• The dining room: Pop Shaffer’s hand-painted ceiling, and the kitchen where a cook is said to work after hours.

History of Shaffer Hotel

Clem Shaffer was born in Harmony, Indiana, on July 20, 1880, the 13th child of a blacksmith family, and followed his father into the trade. He came to Mountainair in 1908 with his first wife, Pearl, to open his own blacksmith shop. Pearl died of pneumonia that first year, and in 1913 Clem married Lena Imboden, a local woman he called Ma. Mountainair was then known as the Pinto Bean Capital of the World.

In 1922 the blacksmith shop burned down. Pop began a cast concrete building on the site in 1923, reinforced with scrap iron, first meant as a hardware store. Traveling salesmen urged him to add a second-floor hotel, and Lena said she would run it, which she did. Two stones on the facade still read “Shaffer” and “1923”. The National Register nomination dates the east wing, with a dining room and kitchen below and more rooms above, to 1928 (other sources say 1929 or 1932), and in 1931 he built the concrete fence by the garden, inlaid with dark rock animals and signed “Built by Pop Shaffer 1931”.

What makes the building famous is the decoration. Shaffer carved and painted animals, figures and patterns all over the walls, ceilings and fences, much of it inspired by Native American design, from stained-glass thunderbirds to a bar top with hidden animals. The SPACES folk art archive notes that the swastikas on the facade were used in the 1920s, before the rise of Nazism, as the Navajo “whirling log”, a symbol of peace. In 1937 he began Rancho Bonito, a ranch south of town with a barn, a tenant house and a show house for his carved wooden animals, which is on the National Register too.

The hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, when it had 33 rooms, and it is registered cultural property No. 517 of the State of New Mexico. Joel Marks bought it in 2004, renovated it, cut the rooms down to 19 and reopened it in December 2005; its ghost stories date mostly from that period on. New Mexico Magazine reported in 2021 that Ed von Kutzleben bought the hotel in 2019 and reopened it with new plumbing and beds, with a breakfast dining room and La Galeria, an art gallery run by local artists, inside the building.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Call ahead before you go: this is a small, independently run hotel and its hours and status can change.
• Ask for Room 16 or the Abo Suite if you want the rooms with the most stories.
• Look up in the dining room at Pop’s painted ceiling, and walk around the outside to see the fence.
• Visit the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument; its visitor center is in Mountainair and the Abo, Quarai and Gran Quivira ruins are nearby.
• Combine the trip with a night at Hotel Andaluz or Hotel Parq Central in Albuquerque, about 90 minutes away.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Hotel Andaluz, Albuquerque: Conrad Hilton’s 1939 hotel, about 90 minutes northwest
• Hotel Parq Central, Albuquerque: a former railroad hospital turned boutique hotel
• La Posada de Santa Fe: Julia Staab’s mansion in Santa Fe
• The Lodge Resort, Cloudcroft: the mountain resort haunted by Rebecca, to the south
• 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.

• National Register nomination: Shaffer Hotel (NPGallery)
• HMdb: Shaffer Hotel historical marker
• New Mexico Magazine: Visit small-town Mountainair (2021)
• SPACES Archives: Shaffer Hotel and Rancho Bonito
• Wikipedia: Rancho Bonito
• Albuquerque Journal: Ghost hunters look for paranormal at Shaffer Hotel (2019)
• GSNSP: Shaffer Hotel, inside New Mexico's most haunted hotel (2026)

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