The Haunted Hotel St. Pierre, New Orleans: The Peyroux House and Its Ghosts

Hotel St. Pierre sits at 911 Burgundy Street, on the corner of Dumaine, in the quieter residential part of the French Quarter a few blocks from Bourbon Street. It is a collection of Creole cottages and townhouses around courtyards and two small pools, and it is one of the better-value places to stay in the Quarter.

At its heart is the Gabriel Peyroux House, built around 1780 in the French colonial briquette-entre-poteaux style, one of very few such houses left in the city. It survived both great fires of the 1700s, and guests say it has kept some of its old residents too: icy hands in the night, weight settling at the foot of the bed, heavy footsteps overhead and a man in blue said to have been the family’s carriage master. For more nearby, see our guide to the most haunted hotels in New Orleans.

The ghosts of Hotel St. Pierre

Cold hands in the Peyroux House

Ghost City Tours, which interviewed hotel staff, calls the Peyroux House the main hotspot. Guests there describe icy hands drifting over bare skin as they sleep and the feeling of someone sitting down at the end of the bed.

One guest told a local tour company that as he drifted off with his arm hanging between the headboard and the wall, a cold, clammy hand took hold of his from under the bed.

Footsteps above the carriage house

Footsteps are the most common report, according to the hotel’s assistant general manager. In one well-known case a guest in the carriage house behind the lobby complained about heavy footsteps in the room above her late at night. No one was staying in that room. Staff put it down to the house’s ghost.

The carriage master

A man in his forties, dressed in a matching blue shirt and trousers with black boots, is seen in front of the main entrance. He is said to be the Peyroux family’s carriage master from the 18th century, still waiting at the door for the family to call.

The soldier and the channel changer

Other stories add a Confederate veteran said to haunt the former slave quarters at the back of the property, now some of the hotel’s cheaper rooms, and a middle-aged man who moves objects around and changes the television channels. Some tellers suggest the restless presence is simply a member of the Peyroux family checking on their old home.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The Peyroux House: The 1780s Creole house at the corner of Burgundy and Dumaine, the center of the cold-hand stories.
• The carriage house: Directly behind the lobby, where guests report heavy footsteps from an empty room above.
• The former slave quarters: Back buildings now used as budget rooms, linked to the Confederate soldier story.
• The main entrance: Where the carriage master in blue is said to stand.

History of Hotel St. Pierre

The story of the hotel begins with Gabriel Peyroux de la Roche, a French-born apothecary, and his wife, Maria Susana Caue, a New Orleans native. Their house was first built on the family’s land on Bayou Road. Around 1780 to 1781 they had it moved into town and rebuilt on the corner of Burgundy and Dumaine, on a square that Susana’s father, Francois Caue, had owned since 1754.

The house is built in the briquette-entre-poteaux method, soft bricks packed between heavy timber posts, the technique of the early French colony. Very few examples survive, partly because the Great Fires of 1788 and 1794 swept away most of the old city. The Peyroux house came through both. Gabriel died in 1794 and Susana in 1838, and the family held the house and much of the square until 1850.

In 1853 the property was acquired by Julien Adolph Lacroix, a free man of color. Over the following century it was split into three households and used as apartments, storage and a corner store, before its clapboards came off and the hotel era began in the 1950s.

In 1961 the building at 1017 Dumaine, on the same square, opened as the New Orleans Jazz Museum, described as the first jazz museum in the world. Its collection included Louis Armstrong’s first cornet. Armstrong himself is said to have stayed at the hotel in 1965, and Tennessee Williams is said to have been a regular. The museum’s collection moved to the Old U.S. Mint in 1981 as part of the Louisiana State Museum.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for the Peyroux House. Call after booking and ask for a room in the old house or the carriage house. It is a request, not a guarantee.
• Ask the staff. The front desk has told ghost tour researchers its own stories, and they will often share the latest.
• Look at the walls. In the old house you can see how the colonial post-and-brick building method works.
• Visit the Old U.S. Mint. The jazz collection that once lived next door, including Armstrong’s first cornet, is now there at the foot of Esplanade.
• Walk to the neighbors. The Lafitte Guest House and the Bourbon Orleans are both a few blocks away.
• Want to investigate with a team? Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts at historic venues across the US.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Lafitte Guest House: Marie and Room 21, two blocks away on Bourbon Street
• Bourbon Orleans Hotel: the ballroom dancer and the nun of Room 644
• Andrew Jackson Hotel: ghostly boys in the courtyard on Royal Street
• Haunted places in New Orleans: the city’s other famous haunts
• Haunted hotels in Louisiana
• Haunted hotels in New Orleans

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: Hotel St. Pierre
• Ghost City Tours: The ghosts of Hotel St. Pierre
• Cajun Encounters: Top 5 haunted hotels in New Orleans
• Explore Louisiana: Hotel St. Pierre
• Wikipedia: Great New Orleans Fire (1788)

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