Haunted hotel guide · Union, South Carolina

The Haunted Inn at Merridun, Union SC: the Lady in Gray, Pennies and the Sister's Room

A columned 1855 mansion in Union whose innkeepers said it held as many as ten ghosts. It ran as a bed and breakfast for about three decades, but no longer appears to take guests.

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

c. 1855Mansion built
10Presences a clairvoyant counted

Current statusMeet the ghosts

No longer open to guests

The Inn at Merridun appears to have stopped taking guests. Its website, merridun.com, no longer belongs to the inn, map listings now show it as permanently closed, and property records describe 100 Merridun Place as a single-family home. Merridun is a private property, so please view it only from the street. For a haunted night in the South Carolina upstate, stay at the Belmont Inn in Abbeville, about an hour and a half away, or see all of our haunted hotels in South Carolina.

Merridun is a white Greek Revival mansion with a two-story portico of Corinthian columns, set on wooded grounds at 100 Merridun Place in Union, a small mill and college town in the South Carolina upstate. It was built around 1855, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and for about thirty years from the early 1990s it was the Inn at Merridun, a five-room bed and breakfast run by innkeepers Jim and Peggy Waller.

During those years it became one of the best-known haunted inns in the state. The innkeepers described a lady in a gray dress, shiny pennies appearing on the floor and footsteps upstairs, and a clairvoyant who visited counted ten separate presences. SCETV’s Ghosts and Legends series featured the house, and paranormal groups ran overnight investigations there.

Inn at Merridun at a glance

  • Address 100 Merridun Place, Union, SC 29379 (private property)
  • Opened Built c. 1855 by W. J. Keenan; remodeled around 1900; an inn from about 1992
  • Most haunted spots The upstairs Sister’s Room and the second-floor hallway
  • Best-known ghosts A lady in a gray dress, the Duncans, a white dog, children and a woman named Margaret
  • Booking the haunted room Not possible: the inn no longer takes guests.
  • Good to know Status: no longer open to guests. Nearest haunted stay with a ghost story of its own: the Belmont Inn in Abbeville.

The ghosts of The Inn at Merridun

The lady in the gray dress

Soon after they bought the house, the owners began seeing a lady in a gray dress, according to SCETV’s Ghosts and Legends. She became the inn’s signature ghost, a quiet figure who appeared and vanished without trouble.

Pennies, perfume and cigar smoke

The most charming Merridun story is about money. Shiny pennies kept turning up on the floors. Stories gathered on the Haunted Places website credit them to T. C. and Fannie Duncan, members of the family who lived in the house around 1900, who supposedly left them as housewarming gifts and announced themselves with the scent of roses and cigar smoke. Guests also described piano or harpsichord music in a house that had neither instrument.

The Sister's Room

Upstairs, a presence was said to stand in the bathroom doorway of the room known as the Sister’s Room. Another story names Mary Anne Wallace, the sister of a former owner, as a spirit many people claimed to have seen. Whether the room’s name and the story are connected, no source says.

Ten presences and a talking cat

A clairvoyant who visited identified ten energy forces in the house. Among the spirits people described were children, a white dog, a woman named Margaret and others from the house’s past. The owners’ cat, J. D., was said to hold long conversations with something nobody else could see, changing the pitch of his voice as he went.

Most visitors said they never felt frightened and that the spirits seemed friendly. Not everyone was convinced, though. One longtime guest wrote online that in the early years the innkeepers denied any activity, and suggested the stories grew as the inn got quieter. Both views are worth keeping in mind.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

  • The Sister's Room: The upstairs room where a figure was said to stand in the bathroom doorway.
  • The second-floor hallway: Where the footsteps were heard.
  • The dining room: One guest described hearing a full dinner party, with silverware, crystal and conversation, that fell silent as he walked in.

History of The Inn at Merridun

W. J. Keenan built the house around 1855 as a two-story Georgian-style frame home. In 1876 it was bought by Benjamin H. Rice, and it stayed with his descendants for generations, including his grandson Thomas Duncan, a political and industrial leader in Union County.

Around 1900 the house was remodeled in the Classical Revival style that gives it its look today: a two-story portico with four Corinthian columns over a one-story veranda, a roof balustrade, an Italian mosaic floor in the hall and a curving staircase. German artist Otto Hamer painted frescoes in the north parlor and dining room. It took the name Merridun at about the same time.

Merridun was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 20, 1974. In 1990 it was bought by Jim and Peggy Waller, who restored it from 1992 and opened it as the Inn at Merridun, with five guest rooms, a full breakfast, evening dessert and space for weddings and meetings.

Property records show the house was sold in 2020 and is now listed as a single-family home. The inn’s website has gone, and map listings mark it permanently closed, so the Inn at Merridun appears to have ended its run as a place to stay.

Tips for a haunted stay

  • Do not turn up expecting a room: the inn no longer takes guests, and the house is private.
  • If you are in Union, you can see the portico from Merridun Place without going onto the grounds.
  • For a haunted overnight in the upstate, book the Belmont Inn in Abbeville and ask for Room 12.
  • Watch SCETV’s Ghosts and Legends episode on Merridun to see the house and hear the stories from the innkeepers.

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Frequently asked questions

Is the Inn at Merridun still open?

It no longer appears to take guests. Its website is gone, map listings show it as permanently closed, and property records list the house as a single-family home after a 2020 sale.

Is the Inn at Merridun haunted?

Its former innkeepers and guests described a lady in a gray dress, pennies appearing on the floor, footsteps upstairs and as many as ten presences counted by a clairvoyant. These are reported experiences, not documented events.

Where can I stay instead of the Inn at Merridun?

The Belmont Inn in Abbeville, a 1903 hotel on the town square with its own cast of ghosts and a well-known Room 12, is the closest haunted stay in the upstate.

When was Merridun built?

Around 1855, by W. J. Keenan. It was remodeled in the Classical Revival style around 1900 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

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.

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About the authors

The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every hotel in our guides using hotel histories, local archives, news coverage and the accounts of guests and staff, and we review each guide regularly so you are not booking a hotel that has closed or changed its name. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.