Haunted New Orleans Hotels

The Big Easy holds its own among the most haunted cities in the United States. It is a city known for embracing the dead among the living with extravagant funeral processions, above-ground cemeteries and voodoo culture. It’s been said that Louisiana’s destructive early history has made perfect conditions for ghosts to haunt the city. So begin your exploration of ghost stories with these haunted hotels in New Orleans where restless spirits roam the halls. 

Haunted Hotels in New Orleans 

Hotel Monteleone

The Hotel Monteleone is a haunted hotel in New Orleans that holds four generations worth of history and there is one tale this family knows well; stories of ghosts wandering the Hotel Monteleone’s halls.  Over the years, Monteleone guests have reported the ghostly visions of former employees still tending to their duties to children playing in the halls. Guests report the 14th floor of the Hotel offers a chance to spot the ghost of the mischievous young boy, rumored to be Maurice. His parents, Josephine and Jacques Begere, were at the famous French Opera House on Bourbon Street, when a carriage accident left the father dead. Maurice’s mother died of a broken heart shortly after. It’s said Maurice’s ghost still roams the halls searching for his deceased parents.

Dauphine Orleans Hotel

Tales of twisted fates are retold through the generations at the Dauphine Orleans Hotel and it's bar, May Bailey's Place. Through sightings, paranormal research and documented letters, there seem to be four main characters who keep establishing their presence from beyond the grave. One of these frequent visitors is the Lost Bride ghost is believed to be the spirit of a young woman, Millie, who was working in May's Place as a courtesan. She met a young Confederate soldier and they fell in love and were set to be married. She became obsessed with the wedding and perfecting her wedding gown. The morning of the wedding ceremony, her groom was shot in a gambling dispute. Millie was told of the news on the way to alter and never recovered from the grief. According to accounts, Millie took to wearing the wedding gown around May's Place and even after her death many years later, Millie still roams the Dauphine hopelessly waiting for her fiance. 

Lafitte Guest House

The beautiful Lafitte Guest House on Bourbon Street offers its own thrills. Items are known to move around the house - a brush from a table to a chair or pad of paper from a nightstand to a desk.  The ghost seems to be the young daughter of the original owners.  She succumbed to an early demise when she fell down the staircase and died “way back in the 1800s,” says a Lafitte Guest House employee, “but her spirit lives on in the house.”  The young girl ripples as she move, her long blond hair streaming across her nightgown as she moves across the second floor hallway - but never making it back down the stairs again.

Hotel Provincial

The Hotel Provincial sits on land that was a grant from King Louis XV. In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville claimed the area as the original "La Nouvelle-Orléans.” After passing through different hands, a military hospital was constructed in 1722.  It’s said the ghosts of soldiers still haunt the buildings. Guests have reported seeing wounded soldiers crying out in pain only to disappear when they turn on the lights or bloodstains that mysteriously appear on the bed covers only to be gone when one looks again.  Guests also report sightings of a young female ghost seen in the Hotel Provincial thought to be someone who cared for the ill in the hospital. 

Bourbon Orleans Hotel

The Bourbon Orleans is said to be one of the most haunted hotels in New Orleans.  In the past, the hotel was the Convent of the Holy Family and after 1960, the convent was transformed into the hotel.  The infamous second floor ballroom hosted many of New Orleans’ most prestigious events.  Now the ballroom is said to have a lone dancer who sways under the crystal chandelier.  Spend time in the great lobby and you might see an elderly ghost who reads the newspaper while smoking a cigar.  It’s reported that sometimes guests smell the cigar before seeing the apparition.

If you are still wanting to further explore the haunted history of New Orleans, take an exploration with Haunted History Tours. Their tours vary from cemetery tours and ghost tours, to voodoo and vampire tours around the great city. 

Sara Hudson is a Louisiana-based freelance writer and author for GoNOLA.com.