The Haunted Hilton Milwaukee: Ghost Stories at the Former Hotel Schroeder

The Hilton Milwaukee stands at 509 West Wisconsin Avenue, close to the downtown convention center and a short walk from Fiserv Forum. Its 25-story tower, with a simplified classical exterior and Art Deco interiors, was the flagship of Walter Schroeder’s hotel chain and opened with 811 rooms. A $42 million renovation of the main tower, begun in December 2024 and finished in January 2026, restyled its 554 rooms and restored the two-story lobby, and the hotel dropped “City Center” from its name.

Unlike many of the haunted hotels in Milwaukee, the Hilton does not have a famous legend. What it has are guest stories, and one in particular has been shared widely: a daughter and her mother who never felt alone in their rooms. Some people think the hotel’s founder never quite left either.

The ghosts of Hilton Milwaukee (former Hotel Schroeder)

The daughter, her mother and Siri

The best-known story is a Tripadvisor review titled “Great Staff, but Haunted”, posted in June 2020 about a stay in December 2019. The reviewer, staying with her mother, wrote that as soon as they arrived she told her mom the place was haunted. In their room her laptop kept glitching, turning music on and off and switching songs by itself.

The detail that made the review spread came next. When her mother told whatever was there to leave them alone, the daughter’s Siri answered, unprompted: “Well that’s not very nice.” Her mother later told her that in their new room drawers opened and closed on their own and the bathroom light switched itself on and off. When they asked, staff said they had never heard of anything like it. The reviewer added that she did not think any of the spirits were mean. A voice assistant mishearing a sentence is a very ordinary explanation. It is also, as plenty of readers have pointed out, a very good line.

Is Walter Schroeder still here?

Walter Schroeder (1878 to 1967) built and bought hotels across Wisconsin and Minnesota, with one in Michigan, and this tower was his finest. He kept a suite on the 24th floor as his home until the 1960s. He is also the man behind the Hotel Retlaw in Fond du Lac (Retlaw is Walter spelled backwards), and his Wikipedia biography notes that his ghost is said to haunt several places, including the Retlaw and the Hilton Milwaukee.

We found no specific published sighting of Schroeder at the Hilton, and the hotel itself does not promote any ghost stories. That is worth knowing before you book: this is a historic hotel with a few strange guest stories, not a famous haunting.

Quiet corridors after dark

Other accounts are vaguer: the sense of being watched in long, empty corridors late at night, footsteps behind you that stop when you turn around. A 1928 tower with hundreds of rooms on long hallways is exactly the sort of place where those feelings grow. Most guests sleep well and notice nothing.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Guest floors of the 1928 tower: Where the guest stories come from. The tower was renovated from 2024 to early 2026, so rooms are new, but the corridors and layout are the originals.
• The lobby: The restored Art Deco lobby is the best place to see the hotel as Schroeder built it, and to imagine its 1928 opening.
• Schroeder's penthouse floor: The National Register listing notes that the top floor held Walter Schroeder’s own penthouse suite, and local reporting says he lived in a 24th-floor suite until the 1960s. It is not a public area.

History of Hilton Milwaukee (former Hotel Schroeder)

Walter Schroeder was a Milwaukee businessman who built a chain of modern hotels across Wisconsin and Minnesota in the 1920s, with one in Michigan. The Schroeder Hotel, designed by the Chicago firm Holabird & Roche and opened in 1928, was its flagship: 25 stories, with public rooms and offices on the lower four floors, guest rooms above and Schroeder’s penthouse suite at the top. Historic Hotels of America says it opened with 811 guest rooms as Wisconsin’s tallest hotel. A broadcast antenna was added to the roof in 1953.

Schroeder sold the hotel to Towne Realty in 1964. Sheraton took over management and renamed it the Sheraton-Schroeder in 1965, then bought it outright in 1967. In 1972 Sheraton sold it to Ben Marcus, whose company also owns the Pfister, and it reopened in 1973 as the Marc Plaza Hotel, with the room count cut from about 850 to about 550. Hilton took over management in 1995, and it became the Hilton Milwaukee City Center. A west wing with 175 rooms was added in 2000, and the hotel joined Historic Hotels of America in 2011.

In March 2024 the building was added to the Wisconsin State Register, and on May 9, 2024 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Hotel Schroeder. In December 2024 Marcus began a $42 million renovation of the main tower, which kept the original chandeliers, marble and woodwork in the lobby and was completed in January 2026. The tower now has 554 rooms and is called simply the Hilton Milwaukee. The west wing, which was not part of the renovation, reopened in January 2026 as The Marc, a separate hotel with its own entrance on North 6th Street.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for a room in the original 1928 tower, ideally on a higher floor; the west wing is now a separate hotel.
• Spend some time in the restored Art Deco lobby before you head up, especially late in the evening when it is quiet.
• Book early for big events at Fiserv Forum and the convention center nearby, when rates climb.
• Combine your stay with the Pfister Hotel, also owned by Marcus, or Schroeder’s Hotel Retlaw in Fond du Lac.
• For a real investigation rather than a hotel stay, join our ghost hunt at Ringling House in Baraboo.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee: The 1893 hotel big league ballplayers talk about
• The Ambassador Hotel, Milwaukee: 1928 Art Deco hotel with a dark Dahmer connection
• Hotel Retlaw, Fond du Lac: Room 717 and Walter Schroeder’s 1923 hotel
• Haunted hotels in Chicago: About 90 minutes south of Milwaukee
• Haunted hotels in Wisconsin
• Haunted hotels in Milwaukee

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.

• Wikipedia: Hilton Milwaukee
• Wikipedia: National Register of Historic Places listings in Milwaukee
• Historic Hotels of America: Hilton Milwaukee history
• Hotel Management: Marcus Hotels completes major redo and rebranding of Hilton Milwaukee
• FOX6: Hotel Schroeder listed on the Wisconsin State Register (2024)
• Wikipedia: Walter Schroeder
• Tripadvisor guest review: Great Staff, but Haunted (2020)
• Hotel Retlaw: History

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