Haunted Hotels in St. Augustine: 5 Haunted Places to Stay
America’s oldest city has a ghost walk every night of the year, and you can sleep in the buildings the guides point at. These are five haunted St. Augustine hotels and inns you can book, and the rooms to ask for.
Founded in 1565, St. Augustine has been Spanish, British, Spanish again and American, and its old town is packed with coquina houses, Gilded Age hotels and inns that have changed hands for two centuries. This guide covers the St. Augustine hotels we could verify that take overnight guests today and have ghost stories told by staff, guests, historians or the city’s tour companies: the 1791 St. Francis Inn, the Casablanca Inn on the bayfront, Flagler’s neighbor the Casa Monica, the Bayfront Marin House and Casa de Sueños, a former funeral home on Cordova Street. Each has been checked against current sources, and we flag where a story is tour lore rather than history. For the rest of the state, see our guide to haunted hotels in Florida.
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookableGhost tours or eventsHotel embraces its ghostsPet friendly
Address 279 St. George Street, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Where to look Lily's Room and the third floor
Reported ghosts Lily, said to have been a servant in the house
Booking the haunted room Lily's Room can be requested by name when you book.
The St. Francis Inn has stood in St. Augustine’s historic district since 1791, which makes it one of the oldest inns in the nation’s oldest city. Innkeeper Joe Finnegan has run it for three decades, and it is a stop on most of the city’s ghost walks.
Its legend centers on Lily, said to have been an enslaved servant in the house who fell in love with the owner’s nephew. The story says the romance was forbidden and that both died in the house. The inn is frank that no document proves Lily existed, but a longtime contractor told News4JAX he saw a housekeeper the manager said did not work there, and he will no longer work alone on the third floor.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for Lily’s Room, the room the inn calls its most haunted.
$$$ · Over $300Haunted room bookableGhost tours or eventsHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 24 Avenida Menendez, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Where to look Rooms 8, 10 and 12, the roof and the lobby
Reported ghosts The Lantern Lady, Margaret Hantelman, a Spanish doctor
Booking the haunted room Rooms 8, 10 and 12 are the rooms named in ghost lore; request one when you book.
Built in 1914 as the Matanzas Hotel, this Mediterranean Revival inn faces Matanzas Bay on St. Augustine’s waterfront. During Prohibition it was run as a boarding house by a well-connected widow, who is said to have signaled rum-runners from the roof with a lantern whenever federal agents were in town. It is now an adults-only inn for guests 21 and over.
Her light is the inn’s best-known ghost: boaters and shrimpers have reported a lantern swinging on the roof at night. Ghost tours add more, including Margaret Hantelman, wife of the architect, said to linger in the lobby and Room 8, and a Spanish doctor linked to Rooms 10 and 12.
Haunted Rooms tip: Look up at the roof from the bayfront after dark, then ask for Room 8.
$$ · $150 to $300Ghost tours or eventsPet friendly
Address 142 Avenida Menendez, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Where to look The original coquina Marin House rooms, the upstairs rooms and the inn's phone lines
Reported ghosts A trickster said to be Francisco Marin, the Minorcan colonist who owned the house in the 1780s
The Bayfront Marin House faces Matanzas Bay a few blocks south of the Bridge of Lions. It is really three houses in one: a coquina town house from the Second Spanish Period, owned in the 1780s by Minorcan colonist Francisco Marin, joined in 1893 by Captain Henry Belknap to two Victorian cottages. After spells as apartments and rentals, it opened as a bed and breakfast in 2003.
Local ghost tours say Francisco Marin never left and likes to play tricks. The stories are small and strange: a guest kept awake by loud noises from a room above that staff said was empty, and a phone technician who heard a tune coming through the receiver while the lines were down. The inn itself does not talk about ghosts.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for one of the rooms in the original coquina Marin House, such as the Francisco Marin Room or the Coquina Suite.
Address 95 Cordova Street, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Where to look The fourth floor, the Flagler Suite, rooms 411 and 511
Reported ghosts Running children, a man in 1920s clothes, a woman in white, a woman in a green dress
Franklin W. Smith opened this Moorish Revival castle of poured concrete in 1888, and Henry Flagler bought it within months. It later spent decades as a county courthouse before reopening as a hotel in 1999. The hotel does not talk about ghosts, but former housekeepers and guests do: children running in empty corridors, a man in 1920s clothes in the lobby and a voice in the Flagler Suite saying “We’ve been expecting you.”
Most stories gather on the fourth floor. It sits in the heart of America’s oldest city, a short walk from the starting points of the city’s evening ghost walks. It is now part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, and it was the first hotel to join that brand in 2010.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for a fourth floor room, then join one of the evening ghost walks that start a few blocks away.
Address 20 Cordova Street, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Where to look The bridal suite, the parlor and the upstairs rooms
Reported ghosts "Randolph", a playful spirit who moves belongings; tour stories add colonial-era ghosts
Casa de Sueños, the House of Dreams, is a pale yellow Mediterranean Revival house with a red tile roof at the corner of Cordova and Saragossa Streets, on the carriage route through old St. Augustine. It began around 1904 as a wooden cottage on Henry Flagler’s land, was remodeled by cigar maker P.F. Carcaba, and in the mid-1900s served as the Garcia Funeral Home. It has been a seven-room inn since 1998.
That funeral home chapter is where the ghost stories start. Tour companies tell of a playful spirit called Randolph who walks the halls at night and moves guests’ things, only to put them back later. Other tour tales of colonial-era ghosts are colorful, but even the tour writers admit no record ties those people to this house.
Haunted Rooms tip: It is run by the same family as the St. Francis Inn five blocks away, so you can stay in one and take breakfast-table ghost stories to the other.
About this guide: This is our first St. Augustine hotel guide. We added the Bayfront Marin House and Casa de Sueños, both covered in Greg Jenkins’ 2012 book Haunted Inns, Pubs and Eateries of St. Augustine. Some of the more dramatic stories told about these inns, such as colonial-era ghosts at Casa de Sueños, have no records behind them, and we say so on each guide. Flagler College, the former Hotel Ponce de Leon, has famous ghost stories but is now a college and does not take overnight guests.
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We collect first-hand accounts from guests and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your stay. We read every story before it’s published.
The St. Francis Inn and the Casablanca Inn are the two named most often. The St. Francis Inn, which dates to 1791, has Lily’s Room, the room the inn itself calls its most haunted. The Casablanca Inn’s Prohibition-era owner is said to still swing a lantern from the roof over Matanzas Bay.
Can you stay in a haunted room in St. Augustine?
Yes. Lily’s Room at the St. Francis Inn can be requested by name, and Rooms 8, 10 and 12 at the Casablanca Inn are the rooms named in its ghost stories. At the Casa Monica, guests ask for the fourth floor. Book, then call the hotel to confirm.
Is the Casa Monica haunted?
The hotel does not talk about ghosts, but former housekeepers and guests describe children running in empty corridors on the fourth floor, a man in 1920s clothes in the lobby and a voice in the Flagler Suite. It opened in 1888 and spent decades as the county courthouse.
Are there haunted bed and breakfasts in St. Augustine?
Several. The St. Francis Inn, Casablanca Inn, Bayfront Marin House and Casa de Sueños are all small inns with breakfast included, and all appear in local ghost tour stories. The Bayfront Marin House and Casa de Sueños were both covered in Greg Jenkins’ book on the city’s haunted inns.
Which haunted St. Augustine hotels are pet friendly?
The St. Francis Inn, the Casa Monica and the Bayfront Marin House all accept pets. Casa de Sueños does not, and you should check with the Casablanca Inn directly.
Can kids stay at St. Augustine's haunted inns?
At some. The Casablanca Inn is for guests 21 and over, and Casa de Sueños takes guests aged 13 and up. Check the age policy with the other hotels before you book.
Does Haunted Rooms run ghost hunts in St. Augustine?
Every hotel in this guide is checked against the hotel’s own website, historic register listings and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as the hotels, guests and local historians tell them; we note where a story can’t be confirmed. 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.
Booking links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects which hotels we include or how we score them.
