Haunted hotel guide · Surf City, New Jersey

Haunted Surf City Hotel, Long Beach Island: Shipwreck Ghosts and the Woman at the Window

A Long Beach Island hotel, bar and music venue on one of the oldest sites on the island, where the ghost stories go back to a shipwreck in 1854.

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

2.8/5Haunted Rooms Score

Late 1800sFirst hotel on the site

Apr to OctRooms open

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Surf City Hotel is a Long Beach Island institution, a short walk from the ocean on Long Beach Boulevard. In summer it is busy and loud in the best way: a bistro and sushi bar, a clam bar, a 21-and-over Beach Club with live bands, a liquor store and rooms spread across the historic hotel, an inn, a cottage and a private apartment. Rooms are open from April through October.

Under the noise is one of the island’s older ghost stories. The hotel’s own history says the previous building on this site was rumored to be haunted before it burned, and that islanders still tell ghost stories about the place. Most of them lead back to a stormy April night in 1854 and an emigrant ship that broke up off the beach. The current owners say they have tried to meet the ghosts themselves, so far without success.

The ghosts of Surf City Hotel

The wreck of the Powhatan

Every Surf City Hotel ghost story starts at sea. In mid-April 1854 the packet ship Powhattan (the name is spelled both ways), carrying German emigrants from Le Havre to New York, ran aground in a storm off Long Beach Island and broke apart. Everyone aboard died; estimates run from about 200 to 365. Around 140 bodies came ashore at Peahala on the island and were buried in pauper’s graves in Manahawkin, where the state put up the Unknown from the Sea monument in 1904.

The darker part of the story concerns Edward Jennings, the local wreckmaster, who ran the Mansion of Health, the big boarding hotel in what is now Surf City. Local histories, including one published by Ocean County, say the victims were found with no money on them, that cut and emptied money belts later turned up under a cedar stump, and that suspicion fell on Jennings. He was never charged, but he left in disgrace and is said to have died in a San Francisco bar fight. The guests, the story goes, began to hear sobbing at night, and the Mansion of Health became known as a haunted house before it burned in 1874.

Is this the same building?

Here the legend and the record part ways. Haunted-places sites say the bodies were kept in the building that is now the Surf City Hotel and that the ghosts are the Powhatan’s dead. The hotel’s own history says only that its first building dates to the late 1800s, was once called the Mansion House, and was rumored to be haunted before it burned. Wikipedia places the old Mansion of Health’s memory at Mansion Cove, at the foot of South First Street on the bay side. Whether the two hotels shared a site is not clear, so the Jennings story is best read as island lore that has attached itself to the Surf City Hotel.

The woman with the baby

The best-known figure is a pale woman holding a baby, seen at an upper window or in the upstairs rooms. People who tell the story link her to the Powhatan, a mother who never reached New York.

Visitor listings for the hotel describe the same pair, a mother and child, among the spirits people say they have seen here.

Footsteps and whispers after 3 a.m.

Guests’ accounts are more about sound than sight. One guest who posted on New Jersey Haunted Houses in August 2024 described footsteps in the hall and then in the room at about 3:30 in the morning, doors moving and whispers and murmurs beside the bed. Others report voices with nobody there. The Ocean County write-up adds older sightings around the hotel and beach: glowing orbs, four women walking arm in arm, and a one-armed Union soldier near the sand.

Put the summer crowd and the Beach Club next door into the picture and you can see why many of these stories come from quieter nights, early or late in the season.

Owners who would like to meet them

Colleen and Greg Gewirtz, who bought the hotel in April 2017, have embraced the story. Their history page says they have tried to make contact with the ghosts but have not managed it yet. It is a refreshingly honest line, and it is the hotel’s own.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Historic hotel rooms and suites: The rooms in the main building are the ones tied to the stories. Ask for an upstairs room when you book.
• Inn and Cottage rooms: Separate buildings on the property with the same private baths, air conditioning and Wi-Fi. Quieter, but further from the history.
• Private apartment: A two-bedroom apartment with a deck, rented by the night. Good for groups.
• The bistro and Beach Club: Hotel guests get a discount in the bistro and free entry to the Beach Club for two guests aged 21 and over.

History of Surf City Hotel

Long Beach Island’s early resort history is centered on this stretch. One of the earliest big boarding hotels on the Jersey Shore, the Mansion of Health, stood in what is now Surf City; one of its owners was Hudson Buzby, and the area was known as Buzby’s Place in the 1830s and 1840s. The Mansion of Health burned in 1874, and old-timers still call the cove at the foot of South First Street Mansion Cove.

The hotel on the Surf City Hotel’s site went up in the late 1800s and the hotel’s history calls it one of the oldest structures on the island. Over the years it was known as the Mansion House, the Long Beach Inn and the Marquette Hotel before taking the Surf City name in the early 20th century. The town itself went through as many names, from Great Swamp to Long Beach City, before becoming Surf City.

The hotel’s bar was popular with fishermen and hunters and had a reputation for parties before Prohibition. The earlier building burned, and the hotel was rebuilt. In the late 1940s the cocktail lounge was expanded for summer visitors, and in the late 1950s a Wurlitzer organ went into the bar. Long-time owner Hank Crane later donated it to the city of Richmond, Virginia.

Colleen and Greg Gewirtz bought the hotel in April 2017 and have remodeled and upgraded it, keeping the bistro, clam bar, Beach Club and liquor store that make it a year-round local fixture even when the rooms are closed.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book midweek, or in May, June or September, if you want a quiet night to listen for footsteps.
• Ask for a room in the historic hotel building rather than the inn or cottage.
• Rooms open April through October only; the bistro keeps weekend hours into the fall.
• Hotel guests get 10 percent off food and drink in the bistro (excluding happy hour) and free Beach Club entry for two adults.
• Walk to the beach after dark. The Powhatan broke up off this coast, and the story makes more sense with the surf in front of you.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Grenville Hotel, Bay Head: ghost children in the lobby, about 40 minutes north
• The Flanders Hotel, Ocean City: Emily, the Lady in White, on the boardwalk
• Hotel Macomber, Cape May: Room 10 and the Trunk Lady at the tip of the state
• Haunted hotels in New Jersey

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.

• Surf City Hotel: History
• Surf City Hotel: official site
• New Jersey Haunted Houses: Surf City Hotel
• NJ Family: Haunted hotels in NJ
• Wikipedia: Surf City, New Jersey
• Wikipedia: Powhattan (1837)
• Ocean County, NJ: Powhattan shipwreck and Surf City Hotel history (PDF)

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