Haunted Thomas House Hotel Ghost Hunt & Sleepover, Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee

Haunted Thomas House Hotel Ghost Hunt & Sleepover

A mineral springs resort, destroyed by fire, home to a cult, and a little girl who still wants you to play

A Spa Town Hotel in the Tennessee Hills

Tucked into the hills of north-central Tennessee, a short drive from the Kentucky border, the small town of Red Boiling Springs was once one of the most fashionable resorts in the South. Its red brick hotel with the long arched porches has been welcoming guests for more than a century. Some of them never left.

In the 1880s, word spread about the mineral waters bubbling up from the ground here, and Red Boiling Springs grew into a spa town modeled on Saratoga Springs, New York. Visitors arrived by the thousands to drink and bathe in the waters, hoping to be cured of everything from stomach complaints to nervous disorders. In 1890, local store owners Zack and Clay Cloyd built the Cloyd Hotel to house them, a white weatherboard building wrapped in two-storey verandas.

In 1924, fire tore through the hotel and destroyed it. It was rebuilt in red brick in 1927, and the resort trade carried on until the springs fell out of fashion in the years after the Second World War. What followed was a strange and restless few decades. The building was used as a boys’ summer camp, and in the late 1980s it became the home of a group whose practices centered on contacting the dead. One guest from that era later described seeing strange figures dancing naked in the dining room. In the 1990s, another fire damaged one wing of the building.

In 1993 the hotel was reopened and renamed the Thomas House. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it has since become one of the most talked-about haunted hotels in America.

The Spirits of the Thomas House

Sarah Cloyd

Sarah was the daughter of one of the Cloyd brothers. She died suddenly in her adolescence, and she is said to have never left the hotel she knew in life. Guests have woken to find a dark figure standing at the foot of the bed, felt the bedframe shake beneath them, and heard a child’s laughter in an empty room. Some have heard a small voice in the dark asking them to play. She is seen and heard along the White Hallway, where doors open and close on their own, and in Room 37, the room made famous on television.

The Whistling Man

Staff and guests regularly report the sound of someone whistling as they walk the halls, with no one there. Many believe it is Mr. Cloyd himself, still keeping an eye on his hotel. A tall, shadowy figure has been captured on camera in the corridors, and it is often seen at the edge of your vision before disappearing around a corner.

Edwin and the Rider in the Stream

A young boy named Edwin is said to have drowned in the hotel’s swimming pool. Staff have reported seeing a child playing with a ball, alone, in parts of the hotel where no child should be. Another spirit is believed to be R.V. Weston, a guest who was thrown from his horse and drowned in the stream near the property.

The Dining Room and the Dark Hallway

The dining room is one of the most active spaces in the building. Disembodied voices and laughter have been heard here, the piano has been heard playing by itself, and guests have reported being scratched and having their hair pulled. In the dark hallway, investigators have recorded voices, witnessed shadow figures and captured glowing orbs moving through the air.

As Seen on TV

The Thomas House Hotel has been investigated on Syfy’s Ghost Hunters, and in 2020 it was the subject of an episode of Travel Channel’s Portals to Hell, where a séance in the hotel produced orbs, loud thumps and equipment failures.

Your Night at the Thomas House

Your night: Check-in 3PM · Dinner 6PM · Ghost hunt 8PM · Breakfast 9AM

For one night, the whole hotel is ours. Every guest sits down to dinner at 6PM: a home-cooked Southern buffet, served the way the Thomas House has fed its guests for generations. Once the plates are cleared, our team will take you through the hotel, from the White Hallway and the dining room to the guest rooms, with a full history and ghost briefing before the lights go out.

You will work in small groups with professional ghost hunting equipment, including EMF detectors, trigger objects, thermal imaging and motion sensors, plus EVP sessions run by our team, through structured vigils and experiments. The final part of the night is free roam, so you can return to wherever you felt something and investigate on your own terms. We provide all the equipment.

General Admission with Dinner

General Admission is $119 per person. Arrive from 5:30PM for dinner at 6PM, then join the six-hour after-hours investigation from 8PM to 2AM alongside the overnight guests, with every vigil and the free roam at the end.

Overnight VIP Rooms

Overnight VIP guests check in from 3PM, sit down to dinner at 6PM, take part in the full investigation, and then carry on for as long into the night as they like before sleeping in one of the hotel’s historic rooms. Breakfast is served at 9AM (biscuits, eggs, sausage and gravy) and check-out is at 11AM. Every room has its own private bathroom, and linens and towels are provided. Each room is sold once, and prices are per room.

See every room, with photos, in the Rooms tab below. Group rooms for up to four work out from about $117 each, rooms for two start at $299, and our single room is $179.

What’s Included

• A home-cooked Southern buffet dinner at the hotel at 6PM.
• A six-hour after-hours investigation, 8PM to 2AM, with the Haunted Rooms America team.
• Exclusive access to the Thomas House Hotel and its grounds, including the guest rooms, the White Hallway and the dining room.
• Full history and ghost briefing.
• Group vigils and experiments, guided by our experienced team.
• Use of all our professional ghost hunting equipment.
• Free roam to investigate at the end of the night.
• Optional Estes Method sessions run by our team during free roam.
• Snacks and refreshments at intervals throughout the night.
• **Overnight VIP – Your own historic room with a private bathroom, check-in from 3PM, and investigation for as long into the night as you like.
• **Breakfast – A Southern breakfast for overnight guests at 9AM, with check-out at 11AM.

Meals: dinner and breakfast are a set Southern buffet. There are always plenty of vegetable dishes for vegetarians, but the hotel kitchen is not able to cater for other dietary requirements.

Equipment and recording: Guests are welcome to bring their own ghost hunting equipment (EMF meters, spirit boxes, REM pods and similar). For the privacy of other guests and venue security, photography, video and audio recording are not permitted at any point during the event.

Are You Brave Enough to Stay the Night?

Sarah still wants someone to play with, and the Whistling Man is still walking the halls. Our team will be up with them all night, and you can join us. With just 13 rooms and limited General Admission places, there is very little room on the guest list.

Split the cost into four interest-free payments with Klarna or Afterpay (subject to approval), so a $469 group room is about $117 a payment, or pay monthly with Affirm.

18 & over only, or from 16 with a responsible adult.