Haunted hotel guide · Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania

The Haunted Hotel Conneaut, Conneaut Lake: Elizabeth, the 1943 Fire and Room 323

The last of the grand hotels of Conneaut Lake Park, a lakeside resort where a bride named Elizabeth is said to have died in a 1943 fire and never checked out.

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

4.0/5Haunted Rooms Score
1892Conneaut Lake Park opened
Room 323Most requested room

Meet the ghosts

Hotel Conneaut stands on the shore of Conneaut Lake in Crawford County, in the far northwest corner of Pennsylvania, about 45 minutes south of Erie. It is a big wooden resort hotel with a long veranda facing the water and a ballroom where generations of local couples have held their wedding receptions. When the amusement park next door was at its height there were as many as 20 hotels on the park grounds. Hotel Conneaut is the only one still taking guests.

It is also one of the best-known haunted hotels in western Pennsylvania. The story centers on Elizabeth, a young bride said to have died when fire tore through the building in 1943, and on the third floor, where guests and staff say she still appears. The hotel does not shy away from her: it has sold sweatshirts in her honor, hosted paranormal fairs and ghost hunters, and appeared on A&E’s Paranormal State. Here is what is known, what is legend, and how to book a room near Room 323. For the rest of the state, see our guide to haunted hotels in Pennsylvania.

Hotel Conneaut at a glance

4.0/5
Haunted Rooms Score
Haunted reputation4
History4
Ghost hunter access4
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
  • Address 12241 Lake Street, Conneaut Lake, PA 16316
  • Opened Early 1900s, in Conneaut Lake Park (opened 1892); wings added in the 1920s; partly destroyed by fire in 1943
  • Most haunted spots The third floor, Room 323 and the suites around it, the hallways and the ballroom
  • Best-known ghosts Elizabeth, the bride said to have died in the 1943 fire
  • Booking the haunted room Call the hotel and ask for Room 323 or a third-floor room. Requests are not guaranteed.
  • Good to know A historic, simple hotel with no elevator. The lakeside setting, ballroom and lounge are the draw rather than modern luxury.

The ghosts of Hotel Conneaut

Elizabeth, the bride of 1943

The hotel’s ghost story is almost always told the same way. In 1943 a young woman named Elizabeth was staying at Hotel Conneaut, either on her honeymoon or on the eve of her wedding, depending on who tells it. Fire broke out in the night. Her new husband ran outside, believing she had escaped ahead of him, but she was trapped and died in the flames. Since then, the story goes, she has wandered the third floor looking for him.

Guests describe a young woman glimpsed at the end of a hallway, footsteps and voices when the floor is empty, and a feeling of being watched. A 2011 guest account on CoStar recalled a front desk clerk telling her family that “Elizabeth’s staying a few doors down from y’all.”

Room 323 and the mirror

Room 323 is the room most linked to Elizabeth, and local legend places the fire there. Desk clerk Marty Knapp told Erie News Now that she thought she saw Elizabeth’s face in the mirror of Room 323. She talked herself out of it, then came back to find the furniture in the room moved out of place. She laughs about it now and calls it Elizabeth sending a message.

In August 2016 a Pittsburgh ghost hunting group recorded a voice in the suites numbered 321 to 323, and Pittsburgh Magazine reported that they wondered whether it was Elizabeth.

The floating can

Manager Frank Flanegin, who took over the hotel in 2015, told Erie News Now about two children who ran out of the hotel into the park screaming and crying. They said a Coke can on their table had lifted into the air and spun. He estimated that 15 to 20 guests had checked out over five or six years because they were frightened, while hundreds more had come because of the ghost stories.

What the records say

The 1943 fire is real: it destroyed a large part of the hotel and, by one count, cut its rooms roughly in half. What is less certain is Elizabeth herself. No record we have found names a guest who died in the fire, and TJ Porfeli of the Pittsburgh ghost hunting group Ghosts n’at told Pittsburgh Magazine he had read that the hotel was closed to visitors when it burned. So treat Elizabeth as a legend rooted in a real disaster. That has not stopped people from reporting her for decades.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

  • Room 323: The room at the heart of the Elizabeth legend, where a desk clerk saw a face in the mirror and furniture moved. The most requested room for ghost seekers.
  • Suites 321 to 323: Where a ghost hunting group recorded a voice in August 2016. Any third-floor room puts you on Elizabeth’s floor.
  • The ballroom: A grand lakeside room that has hosted wedding receptions for generations, and the setting for the hotel’s paranormal fairs.
  • The veranda: The long porch facing Conneaut Lake. On a quiet evening it is the best place to picture the resort in its heyday.

History of Hotel Conneaut

Conneaut Lake Park opened in 1892 as Exposition Park, founded by Col. Frank Mantor as a permanent fairground for livestock, machinery and the products of western Pennsylvania. The railroad had reached the lake in the late 1880s, and the park quickly turned into a summer resort. Visitors arrived by train, and hotels of every size went up on the park grounds and around the shore, from big resort hotels to small boarding houses. A Crawford County history blog counts as many as 20 hotels within the park itself.

Hotel Conneaut was one of the largest. Most accounts date it to the early 1900s, though a 2016 Pittsburgh Magazine profile gave 1893, and a historic photo shows new south and north wings added in the 1920s. Northwestern Pennsylvania Heritage records that it was built with about 300 rooms. Then, in 1943, fire destroyed a large part of the building, and the hotel was left with roughly half its former size. The surviving hotel kept running, and as the other park hotels closed or were torn down, it became the last one standing.

The park itself had a long, difficult decline, ending up in the hands of trustees and then in bankruptcy, and it lost buildings to fire, including the Beach Club in 2013. In 2016 the park’s trustees leased the hotel to Robert Morris University finance professor Frank Flanegin and two partners, who had supplied food service to the park in the 1980s and 1990s. They cleaned up the building, reopened the rooms and leaned into the ghost stories. In March 2021 a bankruptcy court approved the sale of the whole park to Keldon Holdings, led by Todd Joseph, for $1.2 million.

The new owners have been renovating the hotel since 2024. In September 2024 co-owner Linda Joseph told YourErie that the lobby, ballroom, hallways and first-floor rooms were finished, a 1920s-style speakeasy lounge had been added, and work on the second and third floors was under way, with the aim of having every room ready by the end of 2025. The lakefront, boardwalk and beach were relandscaped as part of the same project. The hotel is taking overnight guests and hosting weddings into 2026.

Tips for a haunted stay

  • Call to book and ask for Room 323 or another third-floor room. If you would rather sleep, ask for a renovated room on the first floor.
  • There is no elevator, so pack light if you are heading to the third floor and tell the hotel about any mobility needs when you book.
  • Visit in September or October, when Conneaut Lake Park has traditionally run its Ghost Lake and Halloween events, and the hotel has hosted paranormal fairs.
  • Bring a camera or recorder to the third-floor hallway, and be respectful of other guests who are there for the lake rather than the ghosts.
  • Combine your stay with Erie, about 45 minutes north, or Pittsburgh, about an hour and a half south.

Want to investigate, not just sleep?

Sleeping in a haunted hotel is one thing. Investigating one after dark is another. On a Haunted Rooms ghost hunt our team takes you through the building with professional ghost hunting equipment, runs EVP sessions and lets you explore on your own during free roam.

See all Pennsylvania ghost hunts

More haunted hotels nearby

Stayed in one of these hotels? Tell us what happened

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.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hotel Conneaut haunted?

It has a long ghost reputation and embraces it. The best-known story is Elizabeth, a bride said to have died in a 1943 fire, who guests and staff say still appears on the third floor. Staff have also reported a face in a mirror, moved furniture and a floating soda can. These are stories and reports, not proven events.

Who is the ghost at Hotel Conneaut?

Elizabeth. Local legend says she was a young bride staying at the hotel in 1943 when fire broke out, and that her husband escaped believing she was already outside. No record we have found confirms that anyone died in the fire.

What is the most haunted room at Hotel Conneaut?

Room 323, on the third floor, is the room most linked to Elizabeth. Suites 321 to 323 are where a ghost hunting group recorded a voice in 2016.

Was there really a fire at Hotel Conneaut?

Yes. A fire in 1943 destroyed a large part of the hotel, roughly halving the number of rooms. The rooms you book today are in the part that survived.

Is Hotel Conneaut open?

Yes. New owners took over Conneaut Lake Park and the hotel and have been renovating it since 2024, and it is taking overnight guests and hosting weddings into 2026. Call ahead, as some rooms have been under renovation.

Was Hotel Conneaut on TV?

Yes. It was featured on A&E’s Paranormal State, and its manager has said that paranormal TV coverage, mostly of the third floor, brought in guests the hotel could never have reached with advertising.

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.

Get new haunted hotel guides by email

New guides, haunted hotel picks and ghost hunt dates near you. No spam, unsubscribe any time.

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.