Haunted Rosario Resort, Orcas Island: Alice Rheem, the Lady in Red of the Moran Mansion

Rosario sits on Cascade Bay on Orcas Island, built around the white Moran Mansion that shipbuilder and former Seattle mayor Robert Moran finished in 1909. It has been a resort since 1960 and is one of the best-known haunted hotels in Washington, thanks to a later owner’s wife, Alice Rheem, who lived in the mansion from 1938 until her death there in 1956. Island lore remembers her riding into Eastsound in a red nightgown, and resort staff have told stories for decades of high-heeled footsteps, a touch in the dark and a bed that shook.

There is one thing to know before you book. After the resort was sold in 2024, the mansion has stayed closed, and the resort now says the mansion and the resort are under separate ownership, with no word yet on reopening. The waterfront guest rooms remain open. Below we cover the ghost stories, the history, and how to plan a stay while the mansion’s future is settled.

The ghosts of Rosario

Alice Rheem, the lady in red

In 1938 Robert Moran sold Rosario to Donald Rheem, the California industrialist behind Rheem water heaters. Rheem sent his wife Alice to live at the mansion while he stayed in California. Local historian Christopher Peacock has suggested he did so because Alice drank heavily and liked to party.

On Orcas, Alice became a legend in her own lifetime. Islanders say she rode her motorbike (some versions say a Harley-Davidson, others a scooter) into Eastsound to play cards at the store, sometimes wearing only a red nightgown. Other stories say she brought young servicemen back to the mansion while her husband was away. She died in the mansion in 1956 of alcohol-related causes, and resort staff have long believed she is still there.

A touch in the dark: the staff accounts

The best-known accounts come from people who worked at the resort, collected in Jefferson Davis’s book A Haunted Tour Guide to the Pacific Northwest and retold in the Spokesman-Review in 2007. A resort employee in the 1980s who stayed in Alice’s old room saw a shadow move toward her and felt fingers touch her hand. She left the room around midnight.

A later employee spent a night in the mansion and said the bed began to shake violently, then she felt a touch and fled. Guests have also described footsteps like high heels in halls with no one in them, moving shadows and a likeness of Alice carrying a small dog.

The 1987 room with the key on its hook

Dennis William Hauck’s national directory of haunted places records a 1987 incident at Rosario. Three traveling entertainers staying at the resort were kept awake by noises from the room next door. The desk clerk told them the room was empty and that its key had never left its hook.

Before midnight, they said, the light under the neighboring door flashed on and off three times, and then they heard a bed creaking. The account has been repeated in island ghost books ever since, and it fits the stories staff told about Alice’s restless nights.

The lady in red on the upper floors

Our original page described a woman in a red dress seen on the second and third floors, said to be riding a motorcycle through the halls. That version blends two stories: the motorbike rides belong to Alice’s life on the island, while the sightings inside are of a woman in red, or simply footsteps and shadows, on the mansion’s upper floors. The resort itself does not tell these stories, so they come to us from staff, authors and island lore.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Alice Rheem's old room: Where the 1980s employee saw a shadow and felt a touch. Inside the mansion, which is currently closed.
• The mansion halls: Where guests and staff have described high-heeled footsteps with no one there.
• The music room: Home to Moran’s 1913 Aeolian pipe organ with more than 1,900 pipes, where organ concerts were held for years.
• The cove at night: The best view of the mansion while it is closed is from the water’s edge and the marina after dark.

History of Rosario Resort (Moran Mansion)

Robert Moran was a Seattle shipbuilder who had served as the city’s mayor. In poor health, he moved to Orcas Island and between 1906 and 1909 built Rosario, named after Rosario Strait, using wood and stone from the island. He recovered and lived there for decades, and in 1932 called the place “a delightful place in which to regain physical, mental and spiritual health.”

The mansion is an Arts and Crafts house with a nautical feel: stained glass windows, a Tiffany chandelier and two libraries. Its music room holds a two-story, 1913 Aeolian pipe organ with more than 1,900 pipes and a 1900 Steinway grand piano. In 1921 Moran gave a large part of his land to the state, which became Moran State Park.

Moran sold Rosario in 1938, and the Rheem years followed. The estate changed hands again after Alice’s death and opened as Rosario Resort in 1960, with the mansion as its centerpiece and a museum honoring Moran. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 2, 1978.

The resort was put up for sale in 2023 and sold in 2024. It closed for a time, partly reopened without the mansion, and went through a difficult period of debt and a cancelled foreclosure auction in early 2025, when the owners said the mansion would reopen that summer. As of 2026 the resort’s own site says the resort and the mansion are under separate ownership and it has heard nothing about reopening plans. The waterfront rooms, marina and grounds remain open.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Check the mansion’s status before you book for the ghost story. As of late 2026 it was closed and the resort had no reopening date.
• Guest rooms sit along the waterfront, separate from the mansion, so ask for a room with a view across the cove to the white house.
• Restaurants, the pool and other amenities are seasonal. Confirm what will be open for your dates.
• Book your ferry from Anacortes early in summer, or fly in by seaplane.
• Pair Rosario with a night at Hotel de Haro on neighboring San Juan Island, where the McMillin family mausoleum has its own ghost story.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Hotel de Haro, Roche Harbor: an 1886 hotel on San Juan Island with the ghost of Ada Beane
• Manresa Castle, Port Townsend: Rooms 302 and 306 in a Victorian castle hotel
• Palace Hotel, Port Townsend: the Lady in Blue in a former brothel
• Haunted hotels in Washington

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.

• Rosario Resort (official site)
• Wikipedia: Rosario (estate)
• Spokesman-Review: Hauntingly familiar (2007)
• Islands' Sounder: Orcas Island, the Northwest's most haunted destination
• Islands' Sounder: Owners of Rosario Village avoid auction (2025)
• Hotel Online / Seattle Times: Struggling Rosario Resort (2024)

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