Haunted hotel guide · Portland, Oregon

The Haunted Benson Hotel, Portland: Simon Benson and the Grand Staircase

Portland’s grandest old hotel is said to be watched over by the teetotal lumber baron who saved it, and he still seems to disapprove of the drinks at the bar.

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

3.8/5Haunted Rooms Score

1913Tower wing opened

9th floorWhere the little boy is seen

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Benson stands on SW Broadway at Oak Street in downtown Portland, a twelve-story tower of dark red brick and white terracotta under a copper mansard roof. Inside, the lobby is all Circassian walnut, Italian marble and crystal. Today it is The Benson Portland, Curio Collection by Hilton, with 287 rooms and the Palm Court Restaurant & Bar off the lobby.

It also has one of the friendliest ghost reputations in the Northwest. Staff and guests say Simon Benson, the lumber magnate whose name is over the door, still walks the grand staircase and tips over drinks at the bar. Others describe a lady in white, a woman in turquoise seen only in a mirror, a porter who vanishes, and a little boy on the 9th floor. It is one of the best-known haunted hotels in Portland, and in the stories, nobody has ever been frightened.

The ghosts of The Benson Portland, Curio Collection by Hilton

Simon Benson on the grand staircase

The hotel’s best-known ghost is the man who gave it his name. Guests and staff describe him coming down the main staircase in a formal suit, looking relaxed and content. Wikipedia’s list of haunted places in Oregon records the same thing: an apparition of a man descending the hotel staircase.

He is also seen near the restaurant and in the meeting rooms, standing at the back during important meetings, as if keeping an eye on how his hotel is run.

The drinks at the bar

Benson was a famous teetotaler. He paid for twenty bronze drinking fountains around Portland, still called Benson Bubblers, partly so that working men would drink water instead of beer. So the hotel’s favorite story fits him well: drinks at the bar tip over when nobody is near them, and some guests say they have felt a disapproving stare while ordering a second round.

One employee, setting tables for a banquet, described a man in old-fashioned lumberman’s clothes who walked through the dining room and into the wine storage area, and was not there when she followed.

The lady in white and the woman in the mirror

A woman in a long white gown is reported walking the hallways on several floors. A second woman, in a turquoise dress and red rings, is said to appear only as a reflection in a mirror in the lobby, with nobody standing where she should be.

Neither woman has ever been identified, and no story attaches a tragedy to either of them.

The porter who disappears

One story tells of a couple helped to their room with their bags by a porter, who vanished in front of them when they turned to tip him. In another, a guest with a disability was struggling to get into bed when a porter appeared, helped, and then disappeared. If this is a ghost, he is the most helpful one in Portland.

The little boy on the 9th floor

A woman staying on the 9th floor woke to find a small boy standing by her bed. A mother herself, she reached out to settle him, and said his arm felt solid and warm for a moment. He jumped at her as if playing a game, she hid under the covers, felt movement at the foot of the bed, and when she looked again he had gone.

The 7th, 9th and 12th floors are the ones most often mentioned in accounts of activity at the Benson.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• A 9th-floor room: Where the little boy is reported. Ask for the 9th floor when you book and again at check-in.
• The 7th and 12th floors: The other floors most often named in guest accounts.
• The grand staircase and lobby: Free to see without booking: the most repeated sighting of Simon Benson, and the mirror where the woman in turquoise appears.
• The Palm Court bar: Order a drink and see whether Mr. Benson approves.

History of The Benson Portland, Curio Collection by Hilton

The site at Broadway and Oak was first home to the Hotel Oregon, which opened in 1905. In 1911 Simon Benson, a Norwegian-born lumberman who had made a fortune in Oregon’s forests and came to Portland in 1880, went into partnership with the hotel’s operators on a new tower wing. Designed by Doyle, Patterson & Beach, it opened on March 4, 1913, as the New Oregon Hotel. The opening was timed to the minute: a telegram from Washington let the doors open just as Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office.

Benson took over running the hotel himself and renamed it the Hotel Benson in 1914, then sold it in 1919. Earlier versions of this page said Benson built it in 1912 and saved it from failure; the timeline above, from the hotel’s history and Wikipedia, is the accurate one. The building’s interiors, with Circassian walnut from Russia, Italian marble and Austrian crystal chandeliers, were among the finest in the West.

Western Hotels bought the Benson in 1944. In 1957 it demolished the original 1905 Hotel Oregon next door and built a 200-room annex that opened in 1959, doubling the hotel’s size and adding a Trader Vic’s. Westin, WestCoast and Coast Hotels followed as owners and operators, and the hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. It joined Hilton’s Curio Collection on October 6, 2021.

Its guest list has included presidents, film stars and musicians. In 2008 Mitch Mitchell, the drummer of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, died in his room at the hotel while on tour, a fact sometimes folded into ghost lists, though no story places him among its ghosts.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for the 9th floor when you book, and repeat the request at check-in.
• Have a drink in the Palm Court and keep an eye on the grand staircase.
• Look into the lobby mirror on your way through; that is where the woman in turquoise is reported.
• Walk to the Heathman, ten minutes south on Broadway, for the city’s other famous haunted hotel.
• Book a downtown Portland ghost walk; several pass the Benson.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Heathman Hotel, Portland: the haunted ’03’ rooms, ten minutes south on Broadway
• White Eagle Saloon & Hotel, Portland: a 1905 saloon with rooms upstairs
• McMenamins Grand Lodge, Forest Grove: the Lavender Lady in a 1922 Masonic home
• Haunted places in Portland: more of the city’s ghost stories
• Haunted hotels in Oregon
• Haunted hotels in Portland

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.

• The Benson Hotel official site
• Wikipedia: Benson Hotel
• Only In Your State: The Benson Hotel ghosts
• Wikipedia: Reportedly haunted locations in Oregon

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