The Haunted Read House Hotel, Chattanooga: Room 311 and the Legend of Annalisa Netherly

The Read House sits on Martin Luther King Boulevard at Broad Street in downtown Chattanooga. The first hotel on the site, the Crutchfield House, opened in 1847 across from the railroad depot, served as a military hospital during the Civil War and burned in 1867. Dr. John T. Read opened the Read House here on New Year’s Day 1872, and the ten-story brick building you check into today opened in 1926.

Its ghost story centers on one room. Room 311 is said to be haunted by Annalisa Netherly, a woman local legend says was killed in the room’s bathtub in 1927. Guests report running water, flickering lights and a figure in the room, and the hotel leans into the story: it restored 311 to its 1920s look, offers tours of it on request and sells an October overnight package in the room.

The ghosts of the Read House

Annalisa Netherly and Room 311

The story goes that Annalisa Netherly checked in in 1927 and never checked out. The hotel’s own Room 311 page says she was allegedly beheaded in the bathtub by a jealous lover; NewsChannel 9 says a jealous lover killed her in the bathroom; and a 2022 Local 3 News report gives the version that her husband murdered her in the tub after finding her with another man. Wikipedia describes her as a 1920s Chattanooga figure and notes that accounts of her death vary.

No record of a death in the room has ever been published, and the details shift with every teller, so treat Annalisa as a legend rather than a documented case. That has not stopped guests from reporting the same things for years: water running in the tub, lights that flicker, shadowy figures and the feeling of someone else in the room.

Faces in the mirror and drawers that open

Local 3 News, reporting on the hotel’s 150th anniversary in 2022, said guests describe seeing Annalisa in the mirror and drawers opening on their own. The hotel lists unexplained sounds, flickering lights, running water and shadowy figures. You will also find a popular add-on to the legend, that she dislikes men and especially men who smoke; it turns up in ghost tour retellings but not in the hotel’s or the local news accounts, so take it lightly. Plenty of guests sleep in 311 and report nothing at all.

The Civil War hospital

Before there was a Read House, the Crutchfield House on this corner was drawn into the Civil War. The hotel’s own history says it served as a military hospital for both Confederate and Union troops by 1863. Some guests and local ghost tours tie footsteps and unexplained presences in the building to that period, although the hotel that housed the hospital burned in 1867 and none of it survives.

The iron bars on the window

One more piece of hotel lore attaches to Room 311: iron bars on its windows said to have been fitted for Al Capone. Wikipedia repeats that Capone stayed briefly and that the bars remain, but the hotel’s own history does not mention him and we found no contemporary record of the stay, so treat it as a story.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 311: The haunted room, restored with a clawfoot tub, an AM radio and a door that still locks with a physical key. Booked as an October package or toured on request.
• The lobby and Green Room: The two-story 1926 lobby with walnut paneling and marble floors, and the historic Green Room dining room.
• The Manor wing: The 1962 motor inn wing at the rear, newer and quieter, if you want to visit 311 but sleep elsewhere.

History of The Read House Hotel

Chattanooga’s first great hotel, the Crutchfield House, was built in 1847 by Thomas Crutchfield, later the city’s mayor, under an agreement with the railroad that put the new depot across the street. On January 21, 1861, Jefferson Davis gave a pro-secession speech in its dining room, and Congressman William Crutchfield answered by calling him a traitor; guns were reportedly drawn before the room was calmed.

During the Civil War the hotel became a military hospital, treating Confederate and, after Union troops occupied the city in September 1863, Union soldiers. In 1867 a Tennessee River flood reached the lobby, and on September 10 that year the building burned to the ground.

Dr. John T. Read and his wife Caroline, who had already lost a hotel to fire in McMinnville, bought a three-story office building on the site and opened the 45-room Read House on New Year’s Day 1872. Their son Samuel R. Read took over in 1879, aged 19, and expanded it to more than 200 rooms; Grover Cleveland’s 1884 election victory was celebrated here, and Coca-Cola was first sold in Chattanooga at the hotel’s drug store in 1904. In 1925 most of the old hotel was demolished and replaced by the current ten-story Georgian building, designed by Holabird & Roche of Chicago and opened on July 5, 1926. Sam Read ran the hotel until 1943. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Later decades brought the Manor motor inn wing (opened 1962), a string of owners, and spells as the Radisson Read House from 1986 and a Sheraton from 2004 to 2015. Avocet Hospitality bought the hotel in 2016 and completed a major renovation in 2018 that restored its 1920s style and moved the entrance back to M.L.K. Boulevard. Guests over the years have included Winston Churchill (1932), Elvis Presley (1977, under an assumed name), Oprah Winfrey and several presidents, and the hotel marked its 150th anniversary in 2022.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Call the hotel well ahead if you want to sleep in Room 311. The October package includes a decanter of “Bathtub Gin”, cocktails, a dining credit and tickets to Chattanooga Ghost Tours.
• If 311 is not available, ask at the front desk about a tour of the room; tours depend on a guide being free.
• Book a regular room in the main 1926 building rather than the Manor wing if you want the historic atmosphere.
• Have a drink in the Bar & Billiards Room and look at the lobby’s original details before heading up to the third floor.
• Chattanooga has plenty more to explore: Hales Bar Dam, one of the state’s best-known haunted sites, is a short drive west.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Haunted hotels in Tennessee: Union Station’s Abigail, the Thomas House and more
• Hales Bar Dam: a haunted dam and power plant west of the city
• Thomas House Hotel, Red Boiling Springs: Tennessee’s best-known haunted hotel
• Haunted hotels in Georgia: just across the state line
• Haunted hotels in Tennessee

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 Read House Hotel: history
• The Read House Hotel: Room 311
• Wikipedia: The Read House Hotel
• Tennessee Encyclopedia: Read House
• Local 3 News: The Read House celebrating 150 years (2022)
• NewsChannel 9: The ghost who never checked out, the mystery of Room 311
• WDEF: Haunted Room 311 opens for tours

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