Haunted hotel guide · Dedham, Maine

The Haunted Lucerne Inn, Dedham: Room 8 and the Piano That Plays Itself

A long white inn on a hillside above Phillips Lake, on the old road between Bangor and the coast, where the staff say the piano sometimes plays with nobody near it.

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

3.2/5Haunted Rooms Score
1818Main house built
Room 8Most requested room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Lucerne Inn has been feeding and sheltering travelers on the road between Bangor and Ellsworth for more than two centuries. It sits high on a hillside in Dedham, a short drive from Bangor, with a sweeping view over Phillips Lake and the hills beyond. The main house dates to 1818, and the inn was moved to its present spot and remodeled in the 1920s for a resort that gave this corner of Maine the name Lucerne-in-Maine.

Today it is a comfortable country inn with lake-view rooms and seasonal fireplaces, a fine dining restaurant, Rian’s Pub and a Sunday brunch that draws locals from all over the Bangor area. It is also one of the best-known haunted inns in Maine, thanks to a local legend of a jealous husband, a double murder in Room 8 and a suicide in Room 5.

Lucerne Inn at a glance

3.2/5
Haunted Rooms Score
Haunted reputation3
History4
Ghost hunter access3
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookable
  • Address 2517 Main Road (Route 1A), Dedham, ME 04429
  • Built Main house 1818 for Nathan Phillips’s lodging business; moved and remodeled in the 1920s; on the National Register since 1982
  • Most haunted spots Room 8, Room 5, the public rooms with the piano and the halls
  • Best-known ghosts A wife and her lover said to have been killed in Room 8, and the husband said to have died in Room 5
  • Booking the haunted room Call the inn and ask for Room 8
  • Good to know Restaurant and Rian’s Pub open Wednesday to Sunday; Sunday brunch; seasonal pool and fireplaces. The inn was listed for sale in 2024 but is operating as usual.

Check availability

The ghosts of the Lucerne Inn

The murder-suicide legend

The story most often told about the Lucerne Inn goes back to the 1800s. A woman staying in Room 8 was there with a man who was not her husband. Her husband found them and, in a rage, killed them both, then went to Room 5 and took his own life. In the version Maine Ghost Hunters told in 2008, and which Townsquare Media’s Maine stations have repeated since, the husband was the inn’s caretaker, a man named Nathan.

It is a legend rather than a documented event: no full names, dates or records are attached to it in any source we could find, and the inn itself does not tell the story. Note that the inn’s real founder was also called Nathan, Nathan Phillips, which may be where the name crept in. Even so, it is the explanation guests reach for when something odd happens.

Room 8

Room 8 is considered the most active room in the inn, as the room where the couple are said to have died. Guests’ reports across the inn include doors that open and close on their own, faint voices and strange temperature changes, and Room 8 is where people most hope to experience them. Room 5, where the husband is said to have died, gets fewer requests but belongs to the same story.

Old buildings settle and old doors drift, so a skeptic would check the latch and the floor. That is part of the fun of asking for Room 8: you get to test the story for yourself.

The piano and the televisions

Guests and employees have described hearing the inn’s piano playing when nobody was near it, and televisions that switch themselves on and off. Ghostly music is one of the most repeated details in Maine ghost round-ups, alongside objects that move on their own.

Voices and shadows

Guests also report faint voices with nobody there and shadows moving along the corridors. None of it is said to be threatening; the Lucerne’s ghosts are described as restless rather than unfriendly.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

  • Room 8: The most requested room, where the wife and her lover are said to have died.
  • Room 5: Where the jealous husband is said to have taken his own life.
  • The public rooms: Where the piano is said to play with nobody at the keys.
  • The halls: Reports of shadows, voices and doors that open on their own.

History of The Lucerne Inn

Dedham was first settled in 1810 by Nathan Phillips, the man Phillips Lake is named for. Phillips set up a place for travelers to stop near the site of the present inn, and the main house followed in 1818 (the National Register entry gives 1815). The road past it linked Bangor with Ellsworth and the coast, and under Phillips’s son the business grew into a well-known stopping place called the Lake House.

In 1925 a New York investor, Harold M. Saddlemire, bought the Lake House and nearly all the land around Phillips Lake. He planned a grand summer resort to be called Lucerne-in-Maine, inspired by the lakes of Switzerland. He moved the old Lake House to its present hillside site and remodeled it in the Colonial Revival style as the resort’s inn, renamed the Lucerne Inn.

The resort never grew as big as Saddlemire hoped, but the name stuck. The Lucerne-in-Maine Village Corporation was set up in 1927 to give summer residents a say in running the lakeside colony, and it still exists today as a small village corporation inside Dedham.

The Lucerne Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 16, 1982. It has carried on as a country inn and restaurant ever since, with period furniture and artwork, rooms looking over the lake and Rian’s Pub for more casual dining. David and Jayne Silverman, who left New York to run it, bought the inn in 2016 for $2.3 million, with 31 rooms on about 10 acres. In September 2024 it was listed for sale at $3.65 million as a 30-room inn with a 120-seat restaurant, but it has kept operating, and it remains one of the oldest continually operating inns in the region.

Tips for a haunted stay

  • Call the inn directly, (207) 843-5123, and ask for Room 8; it is the room the stories center on. Room 5 completes the set.
  • Ask for an Executive Suite if you want the lake view and a seasonal fireplace.
  • The restaurant and Rian’s Pub are open Wednesday to Sunday and closed Monday and Tuesday, so plan dinner around that.
  • Stay over a Saturday night for Sunday brunch, served 9 to 11:30 am.
  • From May to October an event tent can block the view from some family rooms; ask about it when booking.
  • Bangor is a short drive away; Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor make an easy day trip.

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Frequently asked questions

Is the Lucerne Inn haunted?

It has a long local reputation. Legend says a jealous husband killed his wife and her lover in Room 8 and then himself in Room 5, and guests and staff report doors that open on their own, a piano playing by itself, televisions switching on, voices and shadows.

What is the most haunted room at the Lucerne Inn?

Room 8, where the wife and her lover are said to have been killed. Room 5, where the husband is said to have died, is part of the same story.

Did a murder happen at the Lucerne Inn?

That is the local legend, told since at least 2008 by Maine Ghost Hunters, but no names, dates or records are attached to it in any published source we found. Treat it as folklore.

How old is the Lucerne Inn?

The main house dates to 1818 (some records say 1815), built for Nathan Phillips’s lodging business. It was moved and remodeled in the 1920s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Where is the Lucerne Inn?

At 2517 Main Road in Dedham, Maine, above Phillips Lake, a short drive from Bangor.

Does the Lucerne Inn have a restaurant?

Yes: a fine dining restaurant and the more casual Rian’s Pub, both open Wednesday to Sunday, plus a Sunday brunch.

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.

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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.

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