Hotel Emblem (Formerly Hotel Rex), San Francisco: The Fourth-Floor Ghost

Hotel Emblem is the current name of the Hotel Rex, a 96-room boutique hotel at 562 Sutter Street between Union Square and Nob Hill. As the Rex it was known for its 1920s literary-salon look and was named for the poet Kenneth Rexroth. In 2018 and 2019 it was renovated and reopened as Hotel Emblem, with a Beat Generation theme, a book-lined writer’s alcove and a cocktail bar.

If you are searching for the Hotel Rex ghost, this is the building. Its stories are short and come mostly from staff: housekeepers describing a man in old-fashioned work clothes on the fourth floor, and guests hearing horses’ hooves in the alley behind the hotel. It is a lighter-touch stop among the haunted hotels in San Francisco, but an easy and stylish base close to the cable cars.

The ghosts of Hotel Emblem

The man on the fourth floor

The main story comes from housekeeping staff at the old Hotel Rex. They described seeing a man in old-fashioned work clothes walking along the fourth floor, carrying a meat cleaver, who vanished before they could speak to him. The sightings were said to be mostly on that one floor.

Local lore links him to the Chinese immigrants who lived in this part of the city in the Gold Rush years, when Chinatown spread across the streets just east of here. That connection is a guess rather than a known history: the hotel building itself dates from after the 1906 fire, so if he belongs to the Gold Rush, he belongs to the ground the hotel stands on, not to the building.

Hoofbeats in the alley

The second story is about sound rather than sight. Guests have reported hearing horses’ hooves on the pavement in the alley behind the hotel at night, with nothing there when they looked out. Horses and delivery wagons would have been a constant part of this street until the early 20th century, which is part of the story’s appeal.

How much is known

Hotel Emblem’s ghost stories are thin compared with those at the Hotel Majestic or the San Remo. They come from a handful of staff and guest reports gathered online, no name is attached to the man, and the hotel does not promote them. We include it because it has been on San Francisco haunted hotel lists for years under the Hotel Rex name, and because it is a good-value, central place to stay while you visit the city’s better-known haunts.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Fourth-floor rooms: Where housekeepers reported the man in old-fashioned clothes. Ask for this floor.
• Back-facing rooms: The rooms closest to the alley where guests hear hoofbeats at night.
• The writer's alcove and bar: The book-lined public spaces that carry the hotel’s literary theme, from the Rex days to the Beat-inspired Emblem.

History of Hotel Emblem (formerly Hotel Rex)

Union Square and the streets around it were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, and the hotels on this stretch of Sutter Street were built during the rebuilding that followed. The exact construction date of 562 Sutter has not been published, but the building is one of the many small brick hotels that went up within walking distance of the square in the years after the fire.

For decades the building was the Hotel Rex, part of the Joie de Vivre group of boutique hotels. It was named for Kenneth Rexroth, a central figure of the San Francisco Renaissance poetry scene, and decorated to recall the art and literary salons of 1920s and 1930s San Francisco, with antique books, globes and caricatures of writers. It had 94 rooms and suites and hosted readings and cabaret in its library bar. Writers including David Sedaris and Michael Ondaatje stayed here.

In September 2018 owner DiamondRock Hospitality and the Viceroy Hotel Group announced that the Rex would close for renovation and reopen in early 2019 as Hotel Emblem, a Viceroy Urban Retreat with 96 rooms. The new design kept the literary idea but moved it forward a generation to the Beat writers of North Beach, with a writer’s alcove, literary artwork and a cocktail bar.

The ghost stories were all told about the Hotel Rex, and nothing about the renovation suggests the fourth floor has gone quiet. Search engines and ghost lists still mostly use the old name.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for a fourth-floor room, and for a back-facing room if you want to listen for the hoofbeats in the alley.
• Bringing a dog? The hotel is pet-friendly for a fee per stay; let it know before you arrive.
• Parking is by valet, so arrive by BART to Powell Street or by cable car if you can.
• Use the hotel as a base for a San Francisco ghost weekend: the Hotel Majestic and the Queen Anne Hotel are both further west along Sutter Street.
• Chinatown’s Dragon Gate is a few minutes’ walk away, as is the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Hotel Majestic: Room 407 and the lady in the portrait, further along Sutter Street
• Queen Anne Hotel: Miss Mary Lake’s Victorian school
• San Remo Hotel: the Painted Lady of Room 33 in North Beach
• Haunted hotels in San Francisco: every haunted stay in the city
• Haunted hotels in California
• Haunted hotels in San Francisco

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.

• HauntedPlaces.org: Hotel Rex
• Hotel Executive: Viceroy rebranding the former Hotel Rex to Hotel Emblem (2018)
• Hotel Scoop: Hotel with a heart, San Francisco's Hotel Rex
• Michelin Guide: Hotel Emblem San Francisco
• Time Out: Hotel Rex

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.