Erie Mansion, Clyde: Coffin Tables and Ghosts in the Smith-Ely Mansion

If any house in New York plays up its haunted reputation, it is Erie Mansion. The big red brick house with the white columned portico on West Genesee Street in Clyde is the historic Smith-Ely Mansion, and today it is a bed and breakfast that furnishes its rooms with coffins, skulls and curiosities under the line ‘Where History Lingers’.

Behind the theatrics is a genuinely historic house, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a set of stories that began long before it took guests. It is one of the most unusual haunted hotels in New York.

The ghosts of Erie Mansion

The families who never left

Erie Mansion’s spirits are usually described as the people who lived here. HauntedPlaces.org sums the house up as home to ghosts of former inhabitants and of more recent suicide victims, and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, writing about the house in 2010, mentioned a rumor that an early resident took his or her own life here. We have found no record that confirms a death in the house, so treat it as local legend.

One name does come up. A paranormal group commenting on HauntedPlaces.org says it made EVP recordings and held a dowsing session with the spirit of William “Billy” Ely, a member of the family the house is named for, and asked about the events around his death. That is a single, user-submitted account.

The workers who would not stay alone

The stories gathered pace during the renovation that turned the house into a bed and breakfast. OnlyInYourState reports that locals always said the house had a spooky past, but that it was only once work began that people started to believe it, when some workers refused to be in the house alone after experiences they could not explain. Former residents have also described a door that opened every night, odd sounds and things falling from the walls. The owners went on to embrace the reputation completely, with a roadside sign calling the house historically haunted.

A house dressed for the dead

Part of the experience is the decor. Coffins serve as tables, and the Eerie Suite, whose theme is dead things, has a coffin coffee table, a secret room behind a bookshelf, a giant alligator skull and a large skull and creature collection. Its living room walls are covered in genuine alligator skins (the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum counted 191) with a 24-foot reticulated python and a snakeskin border. Proprietor Mark Wright has called it “not a frou-frou B&B”. It is hard to say where the ghosts end and the showmanship begins, which is exactly the point.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The Eerie Suite: The darkest and most popular suite: a king poster bed, two fireplaces, a coffin coffee table, a hidden room behind the bookshelf and walls of alligator skins.
• The Honeymoon Suite: The brightest room in the house, with a king canopy bed under a chandelier, two fireplaces and a kitchenette.
• The Red Suite: Mostly red, with a king mirrored canopy bed and a collection of erotic artwork. Adults only in spirit.
• The parlors: Coffin tables, chandeliers and fireplaces. Where most guests feel the house at night.

History of Erie Mansion

The Smith-Ely Mansion was built as a two-and-a-half-story brick house in Clyde, a canal village in Wayne County between Rochester and Syracuse. Wikipedia gives about 1850 in its text and 1858 in its summary; the mansion and most listings use 1858. It was later enlarged twice: a renovation in 1875 to 1877 added a large veranda and a three-story tower, and work between 1908 and 1911 added the colossal four-columned portico that gives the house its Classical Revival look.

Its first occupant is remembered as a Dr. Smith, followed by the Ely family, wealthy glassmakers in a village known for its glass works. It became one of the grandest homes in Clyde, with about 40 to 43 rooms over some 12,000 square feet, 23 chandeliers, 12 fireplaces (many with imported marble and mahogany or teak mantels), parquet floors, stained glass, carved woodwork and gold leaf walls in the old music room.

Later it served various businesses and, by one account, an old folks’ home. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 10, 1992. After a long restoration by its current owner it reopened as a bed and breakfast, renamed Erie Mansion for the nearby Erie Canal, with four suites, each with a private bath, and breakfast included. It has welcomed guests for well over a decade and now also advertises ghost tours and events.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book direct: the mansion is not on the big booking sites. Call 315-406-1999 or use its website.
• Ask about ghost tour nights when you book. The mansion advertises tours and events, but the schedule changes.
• Check what is included before you arrive. Suites and rates have changed over the years.
• Walk down to the Erie Canal in the evening; the mansion takes its name from it.
• Pair your stay with Belhurst Castle in Geneva, about half an hour south.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Belhurst Castle, Geneva: Isabella, the opera singer in white, on Seneca Lake
• Allegiance Bed and Breakfast, Mount Morris: Karen on the stairs and Raymond in the library
• Hotel Utica, Utica: Charlie the Tuxedo Man and Room 410
• Haunted hotels in New York

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: Smith-Ely Mansion
• Erie Mansion (official site)
• Erie Mansion: Suites
• Lake Champlain Maritime Museum: The 191 alligators of Clyde (2010)
• Only In Your State: Stay overnight in the haunted Erie Mansion
• I LOVE NY: Erie Mansion B&B
• HauntedPlaces.org: Smith-Ely Mansion

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