Haunted hotel guide · Nashville, Tennessee
Is Gaylord Opryland Haunted? The Lady in Black of Nashville's Biggest Hotel
A 2,888-room resort under glass is not where you expect to meet a ghost in a black antebellum gown, but guests and staff have been describing her for decades.
Gaylord Opryland is a self-contained world of indoor gardens, waterfalls and a river you can ride a boat on. It opened in 1977, so it has none of the century-old history of Nashville’s downtown hotels. It does have a ghost story, and it is one that Tennessee’s official tourism office repeats.
The story is the Lady in Black: a woman in a long black antebellum gown, sometimes veiled, seen on staircases, in corridors and occasionally in guest rooms. Legend connects her to the McGavock family, whose plantation lands once covered this part of Nashville. Earlier versions of our Tennessee guide left Opryland out because we could not find a published account. There are now several, from the state tourism office to local media, so we have added it, with a clear note on what is legend and what is record.
Gaylord Opryland at a glance
Haunted Rooms Score
- Address 2800 Opryland Drive, Nashville, TN 37214
- Opened November 24, 1977; reopened November 15, 2010 after the May 2010 flood
- Most haunted spots The Magnolia Lobby staircase and chandelier, stairwells, elevators and top-floor rooms
- Best-known ghosts The Lady in Black
- Booking the haunted room No named haunted room
- Good to know Next to the Grand Ole Opry House and Opry Mills, east of downtown Nashville
The Lady in Black
Who she is said to be
Everyone describes the same figure: a woman in a full black gown in the style of the mid-1800s, sometimes with a veil, usually seen standing still in a corner, at the top of a staircase or at the end of a corridor. She is described as sad rather than threatening.
Local legend says she is a McGavock, from the family that owned large estates along this bend of the Cumberland River in the 1800s, and some versions make her the same woman who is said to haunt the McGavocks’ Two Rivers Mansion nearby. There is no evidence for any of this, and nobody has put a first name to her.
The chandelier in the Magnolia Lobby
The Magnolia Lobby was designed to look like the hall of a grand Southern mansion, with a sweeping staircase and a large chandelier. Tennessee’s tourism office says the ghost is known to rattle that chandelier. Other accounts describe it swaying or flickering with no draft.
One online version claims the Lady in Black was the hotel’s owner and was killed by a falling chandelier. That cannot be right: the hotel has always been owned by a company, it only opened in 1977, and there is no record of such a death. It is a good example of how ghost stories grow.
Staff stories
A Nashville ghost tour company has collected several employee accounts. A store manager working late in the 1990s said he saw a blurred woman in Civil War era dress at the top of a staircase, said good evening, and watched her vanish. A worker hired in 1995 said he was told at orientation that she sometimes wore red, and later met a group in an elevator who had just seen a woman in red disappear as the doors closed.
In the guest rooms
A few guests say they were woken at 3 a.m. to find a woman watching them sleep, or heard someone whispering by the bed. Top-floor guests mention running footsteps overhead and a heavy feeling on the chest. These are individual accounts, shared online and on tours, and should be read that way.
The most haunted rooms and places to look
- The Magnolia Lobby: The mansion-style lobby with the grand staircase and chandelier at the heart of the story. Visit late at night when it is quiet.
- Top-floor rooms: Where guests report footsteps on the roof. The hotel has seven floors; ask for the top one.
- The atriums: The Garden Conservatory, the Cascades and the Delta are worth a night walk even without a ghost.
History of Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center
Opryland USA, a country music theme park beside the Grand Ole Opry House, opened on the eastern side of Nashville in 1972, and it quickly drew more visitors than the area had beds for. Its owners built a hotel next door. The Opryland Hotel opened on November 24, 1977.
It grew in stages, each one built around a glass-roofed atrium. The Garden Conservatory, a Victorian-style indoor garden with more than 10,000 plants, came in 1983 and 1984. The Cascades, with a waterfall more than three stories high, followed in 1988, and the Delta, with a quarter-mile indoor river you can ride on flatboats, in 1996. The Magnolia Lobby was designed to resemble a Southern mansion, and from 1984 to 2024 it housed the studios of WSM radio, the Opry’s home station. The resort now has 2,888 rooms and 172 suites on seven floors.
The theme park closed at the end of 1997 and was replaced by the Opry Mills mall in 2000. On May 2, 2010, the Cumberland River flooded, guests were evacuated and parts of the hotel were under as much as 10 feet of water. It reopened on November 15, 2010 after a full restoration.
The hotel is owned by Ryman Hospitality Properties, formerly the Gaylord Entertainment Company, and has been run by Marriott International since January 1, 2013. Long before any of this, the land along this bend of the river belonged to Nashville’s McGavock family, whose Two Rivers Mansion still stands nearby. That family connection is the root of the Lady in Black legend, not anything that happened in the hotel.
Tips for a haunted stay
- Walk the Magnolia Lobby staircase late at night, after the conference crowds have gone to bed.
- Ask for a room on the top floor if you want the rooftop footsteps story.
- The Grand Ole Opry House is next door. Pair a show with your stay.
- Visit Two Rivers Mansion, the McGavock family home linked to the legend, a short drive away.
- The resort is well east of downtown Nashville. If you want a historic haunted hotel, add a night at Union Station or the Hermitage.
Want to investigate, not just sleep?
Sleeping in a haunted hotel is one thing. Investigating one after dark is another. On a Haunted Rooms ghost hunt our team takes you through the building with professional ghost hunting equipment, runs EVP sessions and lets you explore on your own during free roam.
- Haunted Thomas House Hotel Ghost Hunt and Sleepover: Our overnight event at the Thomas House, about 90 minutes northeast of Nashville.
- Old Moore County Jail and Funeral Home Ghost Hunt, Lynchburg: Investigate an old jail and a former funeral home in Lynchburg, south of Nashville.
- Hotel Metropolitan Ghost Hunt and Sleepover, Kentucky: A guided investigation and sleepover at the Hotel Metropolitan in Paducah.
More haunted hotels nearby
- Union Station Nashville Yards: Abigail and Room 711, downtown
- The Hermitage Hotel: the crying baby of Room 912
- Haunted hotels in Nashville: every haunted hotel in and around the city
- Haunted places in Nashville: more of the city’s ghost stories
- Haunted hotels in Tennessee
- Haunted hotels in Nashville
Stayed in one of these hotels? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from guests and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your stay. We read every story before it’s published.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Gaylord Opryland Hotel haunted?
It has a ghost story that Tennessee’s own tourism office repeats: the Lady in Black, a woman in a black antebellum gown seen on stairs and in corridors and said to rattle the chandelier in the Magnolia Lobby. There is no record behind the legend.
Who is the Lady in Black at Opryland?
Legend says she is a member of the McGavock family, who owned land along this stretch of the Cumberland River in the 1800s. Nobody has named her, and there is no evidence connecting her to a real person.
Was someone killed by a chandelier at Opryland?
Not that any record shows. One online version of the story says so, but the hotel opened in 1977 and has always been owned by a company, and no such death has been reported.
When did Gaylord Opryland open?
On November 24, 1977, next to the Opryland USA theme park. It closed after the May 2010 flood and reopened on November 15, 2010.
How many rooms does Gaylord Opryland have?
2,888 guest rooms and 172 suites on seven floors, under three glass atriums.
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.
- Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center (Marriott): official site
- Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center (Wikipedia)
- Tennessee Department of Tourism: Meet Tennessee's ghosts
- Taste of Country: Nashville's Opryland is haunted (Oct 2024)
- Ghost City Tours: The Haunted Gaylord Opryland Resort
- Only In Your State: Haunted hotels in Nashville
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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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