The Haunted Hacienda Hotel, New Port Richey, Florida

In the 1920s New Port Richey dreamed of becoming a winter Hollywood. Silent film star Thomas Meighan’s brother gave the land, more than fifty local stockholders put up the money, and in February 1927 the Hacienda Hotel opened on Main Street, a pink Mission Revival building with arches and decorative tile. Gloria Swanson and other stars came to stay. Then the boom ended, the stars left for the talkies, and the hotel spent decades in decline before standing empty.

After a four-year restoration it reopened in September 2022 with 40 rooms, the same number it had in 1927. Staff are happy to share the ghost stories: cold spots, a Lady in White, a dancing ghost and a little girl, plus a half floor that Prohibition bootleggers are believed to have used. The hotel’s own blog says that rumor has it some of its early guests never left.

The ghosts of the Hacienda Hotel

The Lady in White

The Hacienda’s best-known ghost is a woman in white, reported by staff and guests in the hallways and public rooms. Nobody claims to know who she was. In a hotel that was built for Hollywood’s winter crowd, it is tempting to picture her as one of the 1920s guests who swept through the lobby in silk, which is exactly how the hotel’s own blog likes to imagine its past.

The dancing ghost and the little girl

Staff told Axios Tampa Bay in 2024 about two more friendly guests who never checked out: a ghost who dances, fitting for a hotel that once hosted parties for film stars, and a little girl. As with the Lady in White, there are no names, dates or deaths attached to these stories, and nobody suggests they are frightening. The Boston Globe, writing about the reopened hotel in 2024, simply noted that it is said to be haunted by two ghosts.

Smoke on the balcony

When downtown New Port Richey launched ghost tours in 2019, led by paranormal investigator Nicole Ferro, the Hacienda was one of the stops. A fellow investigator told Bay News 9 that people have seen puffs of smoke, or smelled smoke, on the hotel’s balcony when nobody was out there. Plenty of guests smoked on that balcony in the hotel’s heyday, and the story goes that one of them still steps out for a cigarette.

Cold spots and the bootleggers' half floor

The most common report is physical rather than visual: staff point out cold spots in the building that they cannot explain. The hotel also believes that a half floor tucked into the building was used by booze smugglers during Prohibition, and its blog talks about hidden bottles and drinks mixed behind locked doors. A hidden level and an illicit past are all the ingredients a ghost story needs, though the bootleggers themselves are not said to haunt it.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The lobby: Restored with antique chandeliers, original fireplaces and a 1927 courtyard fountain. The heart of the hotel’s Hollywood stories.
• The half floor: Believed to have been used by Prohibition bootleggers. Ask staff about it.
• The guest hallways: Where the Lady in White and the cold spots are reported.
• The balcony: Where people report puffs of smoke or the smell of cigarettes with nobody there.

History of The Hacienda Hotel

New Port Richey was booming in the mid-1920s, and its promoters wanted a hotel grand enough to attract the film people already wintering in the area. Real estate developer James Meighan, brother of silent screen star Thomas Meighan, donated the land, and more than fifty stockholders financed the building. Architect Thomas Reed Martin designed it in the Mission and Mediterranean Revival style, and the Hacienda opened on February 5, 1927.

In its early years it drew the kind of guests the town had hoped for. Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan are the names most often linked to it, along with comedian Ed Wynn, and later accounts add Charlie Chaplin. The hotel also hosted sports figures and writers. But the Florida land boom collapsed soon after it opened, and when the movie colony drifted back to California the Hacienda began a long decline.

Over the following decades the building was put to other uses. The Boston Globe reports that at one point it housed psychiatric patients, and then it sat abandoned for nearly two decades. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, and the City of New Port Richey bought it in 2003 to save it.

Restoration finally came through hotelier Jim Gunderson, who with Alexandra Gunderson also restored the Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora, Florida’s oldest operating hotel. After a multimillion-dollar project lasting about four years, the Hacienda reopened to overnight guests on September 15, 2022, painted coral pink and furnished to look much as it did in 1927, with 40 guest rooms and Sasha’s on the Park, a full restaurant and bar.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask the staff about the ghosts. They are the source of most of the stories and are happy to point out the cold spots.
• Have dinner at Sasha’s on the Park, then walk through the lobby late in the evening when it is quiet.
• Ask about local walks. Downtown ghost tours that stop at the Hacienda began in 2019; the front desk can tell you whether any are running during your stay.
• Book direct. The hotel is not on Booking.com; reserve through its own website.
• Make a Tampa Bay ghost trip of it. The Vinoy and the Don CeSar are about an hour south.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Vinoy, St. Petersburg: the 1925 resort where visiting ballplayers report ghosts, about an hour south
• The Don CeSar, St. Pete Beach: another pink 1920s landmark with a famous ghost
• Cuban Club, Ybor City: Tampa’s most famous haunted building
• Haunted hotels in Florida
• Haunted places in Tampa Bay

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: Hacienda Hotel
• The Hacienda: Whispered stories of The Hacienda
• Axios Tampa Bay: Get into spooky season with these haunted Florida hotels
• Florida Backroads Travel: The Hacienda Hotel
• Tampa Bay 28: Historic Hacienda Hotel will open to guests in September
• Boston Globe: New Port Richey's Hacienda (2024)
• Bay News 9: Ghost tours aim to scare up tourism in New Port Richey (2019)

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