Haunted Hotel Ändra, Seattle: The Ninth-Floor Party and the Woman in 1930s Clothes

Hotel Ändra stands at Fourth Avenue and Lenora Street in Belltown, a ten-story brick hotel a few blocks from Pike Place Market. It opened in 1926 as the Claremont Hotel and took its Scandinavian-inspired name in 2004. Today it is part of Accor’s MGallery collection, with Nordic-style rooms and Tom Douglas’s Lola restaurant on the ground floor.

The hotel does not promote its ghosts, but its stories have been retold in Seattle press for years. Guests on the ninth floor report jazz music, laughter, arguing and breaking glass from rooms that turn out to be empty, and a woman in 1930s clothes has been seen in the halls and in guest rooms. It is one of the more surprising entries on our list of haunted hotels in Seattle, because the building looks anything but old inside.

The ghosts of Hotel Ändra

The party on the ninth floor

The best-known story at Hotel Ändra is a party nobody can find. Guests on the ninth floor call the front desk late at night to complain about music, laughter and loud voices next door. The music is described as jazz from the 1920s and 1930s. When staff go up to check, the room is empty and quiet.

The Seattle Times’ guide to the city’s haunted hotels notes that guests hearing music after midnight is common, and suggests that the neighbors may not be to blame.

Historic Hotels of America notes that the Claremont’s ninth floor really did host impromptu jazz concerts in the hotel’s early years, which may be where the story took root.

Breaking glass and arguing

The party does not always sound happy. Guests have also reported the sound of glass breaking and people fighting, again from rooms where no one was staying. Staff and guests have also described apparitions and objects said to move on their own.

Ghost hunters who have written about the hotel call it a hotbed of activity, though no investigation has published any evidence.

The woman in 1930s clothes

More than one guest has described a woman dressed in 1930s style walking the halls, and some say she has appeared inside their rooms before vanishing.

One version of the story says she died in a fall from the ninth floor. The Seattle Times is clear that no one knows if that is true, and we have found no record of such a death. It is a story attached to the sightings, not a known event.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The ninth floor: Where the phantom party is heard, usually after midnight. Request a high floor when you book.
• The upper corridors: Where the woman in 1930s clothing has been seen walking.
• Your own corridor after midnight: The party and the footsteps are reported late at night; the quiet upper halls are where to listen.

History of Hotel Ändra

The Claremont Hotel opened in 1926 on Fourth Avenue at the north end of downtown Seattle. It was built by Stephen Berg in the Chicago Commercial style, and like many Seattle hotels of the era it offered long-term rental apartments as well as rooms for travelers. According to Historic Hotels of America, the ninth floor hosted impromptu jazz concerts in those years, a detail that sits neatly beside today’s ghost stories.

During the Second World War the hotel served as a transfer station for the Women’s Army Corps as servicewomen moved through Seattle. The long-term apartments were closed in the 1970s, and the building carried on as a hotel.

Craig Schafer bought the hotel in 2002 and spent about two years reworking its layout with a team of architects. It reopened as Hotel Ändra, from the Swedish word for “change,” with Scandinavian-inspired interiors in wood and stone. Seattle chef Tom Douglas’s Mediterranean restaurant, Lola, is on the ground floor, and the hotel is now part of Accor’s MGallery collection and a member of Historic Hotels of America.

The building’s ten stories of brick are largely unchanged from the outside. Inside, almost nothing looks like 1926, which makes the reports of a jazz-age party all the more striking to the guests who hear it.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for a ninth-floor or upper-floor room, and stay up late: most reports of the party come after midnight.
• If you do hear music next door, call the front desk; staff checking an empty room is how most of these stories began.
• Have dinner or breakfast at Lola downstairs, then walk to Pike Place Market, a few minutes away.
• Belltown parking is expensive. The hotel is easy to reach from the airport by light rail to Westlake and a short walk.
• Pair it with a night at Hotel Sorrento, where the ghost is a woman in vintage dress near Room 408.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Mayflower Park Hotel, Seattle: a 1927 hotel a few blocks away with a presence in Room 1120
• The Arctic Club Hotel, Seattle: elevators that stop on the fifth floor by themselves
• Hotel Sorrento, Seattle: Seattle’s best-known haunted hotel
• College Inn, Seattle: Howard the sailor and the Snug Room piano
• Haunted hotels in Washington
• Haunted hotels in Seattle

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.

• Historic Hotels of America: Hotel Ändra history
• The Ticket (Seattle Times): Seattle's most famous haunted hotels (2025)
• Dayton Daily News: Washington state hauntings
• Hotel Ändra (official site)

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