Where to Stay in Florida

Hotel Cassadaga

Cassadaga, Volusia County

The story

Cassadaga is a small town in Volusia County, founded in 1894 by Spiritualists, people who believe the living can talk with the dead. The hotel in the middle of town was built in the 1920s, after the first hotel burned down at Christmas. The hotel says it is home to many friendly spirits.

The best known is Arthur. The story goes that he lived in Room 22, on the second floor, in the 1930s, and that he died in the building. Some say he was a guest; others say he was the hotel's maintenance man. Arthur liked gin and a good cigar. He liked to pull a chair to the end of the hall and sit looking out the window. The hotel restaurant even has a burger named after him.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• The smell of cigar smoke and gin, with no one smoking
• A tap on the shoulder, with nobody behind them
• A feeling that someone is there, near the window at the end of the hall
• A woman seen in the upper windows

Brave enough to stay there?

Guests must be 21 or older. The hotel does not allow ghost hunting or filming inside. It holds seances, and in recent Octobers it has run a haunted house inside the hotel.

The hotel's own website does not name Arthur or Room 22 today. It talks about friendly spirits.

St. Francis Inn

St. Augustine, St. Johns County

The story

The St. Francis Inn dates from 1791 and calls itself the oldest inn in St. Augustine. It was built right up against the street, and it was given the name St. Francis Inn in 1948.

The inn tells the story of Lily, a young enslaved woman who worked in the house in the 1800s. The owner's nephew fell in love with her, and they met in secret in the inn's rooms. When his uncle found out, he sent Lily away and ordered the young man never to see her again. The story ends in tragedy for the young man, and the attic room where it is said to have happened is now Lily's Room, on the third floor.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• A young woman dressed in white passing in the hall
• A housekeeper left the television on while cleaning Lily's Room, stepped into the hall, and came back to find it off
• Whispering in empty rooms
• Shower water that keeps getting hotter no matter how much cold is added
• Locked doors found open

Brave enough to stay there?

Lily's Room is on the third floor, with a queen bed and a clawfoot tub. The inn also names Anna's Room, Elizabeth's Suite and the Garcia Suite as its more active rooms, and it sells a ghost package that includes a walking ghost tour of the old city. The inn says Lily is friendly, sometimes mischievous, and never harmful.

News4Jax reported in 2021 that there is no historical documentation about Lily, and that Charles Tingley of the St. Augustine Historical Society said the ghost stories he had heard did not add up.

Marrero's Guest Mansion

Key West, Monroe County

The story

In 1890, a Key West cigar maker named Francisco Marrero built this grand house on Fleming Street for his wife, Enriquetta. He promised it to her as their home for good, and they raised eight children in it. The staircase is carved and laid with real tobacco leaves.

Then Francisco died on a business trip to Cuba, and it came out that he had a first wife there, Maria, whom Enriquetta had never known existed. Enriquetta and her children were put out on the street with nothing. As she left, the story goes, Enriquetta promised she would always stay in the house she loved, even after death.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• The smell of lavender, said to be Enriquetta's perfume
• A woman walking the halls at night
• Shadow figures in the halls
• Children giggling in the hall and on the stairs; the inn blames any pranks on Enriquetta's children
• The door of the old children's playroom locking and unlocking on its own
• Things moved from where they were left

Brave enough to stay there?

Enriquetta's bedroom is now Room 7 (it used to be Room 18), with a king bed. Most of the reports come from that room. The inn is adults only.

The inn itself says what became of Enriquetta and her children afterward is not well documented.

The Don CeSar

St. Pete Beach, Pinellas County

The story

The big pink hotel on St. Pete Beach opened at the start of 1928. Its builder, Thomas Rowe, had a heart attack in its lobby in 1940 and died three days later.

The legend says Rowe built it for a lost love: Lucinda, a Spanish opera singer he met as a young man studying in Europe. Her parents ended it. He left her a note, 'I wait for you by our fountain,' and she never came. When word came that she had died, the story goes, he built this hotel in her honor, with a copy of their fountain in the lobby. Hotel workers have told of a couple in old-fashioned clothes walking hand in hand near where that fountain stood, and then vanishing. Others have seen a man in a white linen suit and a Panama hat.

In 2008 a Tampa Bay Times reporter went looking for Lucinda in opera histories and old reviews. She found no singer by that name, and the trail led back to the hotel's own marketing office. Rowe's real wife was named Mary Lucille.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• A couple in period clothes walking hand in hand, then gone
• A white-haired man in a white linen suit and Panama hat
• The smell of his cigarettes

Brave enough to stay there?

The Don CeSar reopened in 2025 after Hurricanes Helene and Milton. It runs history tours on Thursdays and Sundays, and its bar is named the Rowe Bar.

The hotel no longer tells the ghost story on its website, and the Lucinda legend was traced to the hotel's own marketing.

The Biltmore Hotel

Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County

The story

The Biltmore opened on January 15, 1926, during the Florida land boom, built by George Merrick, the founder of Coral Gables.

In March 1929, a New York gangster named Thomas 'Fatty' Walsh, once a bodyguard to the gambler Arnold Rothstein, was shot dead during a gambling party in a suite at the top of the hotel's tower. The killing was never solved. The Biltmore later served as a military hospital in World War II and a veterans hospital after, then stood empty for years before it reopened in 1987. Walsh, the story goes, never left the tower.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• The hotel's one original elevator rising to the 13th floor by itself, though that floor needs a key card
• A man chuckling, and breath on the back of the neck
• The smell of cigar smoke in an empty room
• Lamps unplugged where no one could reach
• Men in army uniforms, and dancers waltzing in a ballroom before they vanish

Brave enough to stay there?

The two-story Everglades Suite, on the 13th floor of the tower, where the shooting is said to have happened, can be booked. From 1994, a storyteller told the hotel's ghost stories in the lobby every Thursday night for about ten years.

The hotel itself does not tell the ghost stories today. Sources disagree on whether the shooting was on the 13th or the 14th floor.

The Artist House

Key West, Monroe County

The story

This Victorian house on Eaton Street, with its turret, was built in the 1890s. The Otto family moved in in 1898. Their youngest son, Robert Eugene 'Gene' Otto, grew up here and became a painter, and the inn is named for him.

In 1904, when Gene was four, he was given a doll. He named it Robert, and as he grew he blamed Robert for everything that went wrong. As a grown man he kept the doll in the turret window, and people walking by said they saw it move from one side of the window to the other. Gene married Anne, a concert pianist, in Paris in 1930. Anne could not stand the doll, and after Gene died she had it shut in a cedar chest in the attic. Robert the Doll now sits in a glass case at the Fort East Martello Museum.

Anne, the inn says, is still here. She has been seen coming down the turret staircase in her wedding dress.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• A woman in a wedding dress coming down the turret stairs
• A woman standing at the foot of the bed
• Doors opening and closing by themselves
• Lights flickering on and off

Brave enough to stay there?

The Turret Suite sits at the top of a winding staircase. The Anne Suite was the master bedroom. Guests must be 21 or older. The inn says every encounter has been friendly.

The inn says it cannot vouch for all the stories.

Casablanca Inn on the Bay

St. Augustine, St. Johns County

The story

This Mediterranean Revival inn on St. Augustine's bayfront opened in 1914 as the Matanzas Hotel. During Prohibition, the old city became a busy port for smugglers bringing in liquor by boat.

The inn tells of the woman who ran it then, a widow of good standing whose name is not known. She went into business with the rum runners, and one of them became her sweetheart. When federal agents were in town, she climbed to the roof at night with a lantern and swung it back and forth to warn the boats out on the bay to stay away. She was questioned but never said a word. When Prohibition ended, so did the signals. Or so it seemed.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• People across the bay, on boats and on the sidewalk, report a light shining on top of the inn at night
• Guests at the hotel next door say they have been woken by it

Brave enough to stay there?

The inn has 21 rooms and suites, and guests must be 21 or older. Its website lists the old city's ghost tours.

Sources disagree on where the light is seen: the roof, a window or a balcony.

Island Hotel

Cedar Key, Levy County

The story

The Island Hotel was built around 1860 as Parsons and Hale's General Store, with walls of oyster shell, lime and sand poured ten inches thick. Union troops are said to have used it as a barracks during the Civil War. In 1915 Simon Feinberg turned it into a hotel, and he died there in 1919. The hotel's own history calls his death mysterious; local folklore says he found the manager's whiskey still in the attic and was poisoned for it.

In 1946 Bessie and Loyal 'Gibby' Gibbs bought the hotel and named it the Island Hotel. Bessie ran it for 27 years, was mayor of Cedar Key, and was known for her stories, jokes and playfulness. Guests say she is still playing tricks. A psychic investigation once counted as many as 13 ghosts in the hotel.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• A soldier in a Southern uniform standing at attention just inside the balcony doors, for a few seconds, at sunrise; seen by dozens of guests
• Bessie rearranging furniture and pictures in her old room
• Bessie locking a guest out of his room when he steps out for a moment
• Cold spots and drafts, lights that flicker, doors that open and close
• A feeling of being watched

Brave enough to stay there?

The hotel has ten rooms and no TVs. Bessie's old room is Room 29, with a king bed. A Fox television series filmed a segment here in 1999.

The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. Records suggest it was finished in 1861.

Florida House Inn

Fernandina Beach, Nassau County

The story

The Florida House Inn on Amelia Island was built between 1857 and 1859 and calls itself the oldest hotel in Florida that has never stopped operating. Union officers lodged here during the Civil War. Its guests have included Ulysses S. Grant, Mary Pickford, and Laurel and Hardy.

In January 1873, Annie Leddy bought the inn in her own name. Her husband, Major Thomas Leddy, died that October from an old war wound, and Annie ran the inn on her own until she died in 1908. The story on Amelia Island is that 'Miz Leddy' loved the place too much to leave.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• The smell of lavender perfume, reported by bartenders, staff and guests
• Antique shoes moved from the display into guest rooms
• Voices, touches, and things moving on their own
• A maid who sometimes tidies up, and other times throws the plates and silverware
• A man with a mustache in a military jacket

Brave enough to stay there?

The inn's porch restaurant is called Leddy's Porch. The Amelia Island Museum of History runs a one-hour ghost tour of the old town every Friday at 6 pm.

Local lore says the railroad built the inn; the inn's own history says the records do not support that.

The Gibson Inn

Apalachicola, Franklin County

The story

The Gibson Inn was built in 1907 of heart pine and black cypress as the Franklin Hotel, and it was heated entirely by steam. In 1923 two sisters, Annie Gibson Hayes and Mary Ellen 'Sunshine' Gibson, bought it and gave it their name. During World War II it housed Army officers from nearby Camp Gordon Johnston.

Two of its guests are said to have stayed on. Captain Wood, a sea captain, died of pneumonia at the inn. Late at night, staff and guests hear piano music and footsteps in the empty bar and dining room. Sunshine Gibson is said to be just as friendly, and she gets attention by ringing the phones in guests' rooms.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• Piano music in the bar late at night, with no one at the piano
• Footsteps in the empty dining room
• Phones ringing in guest rooms
• A woman in a gray dress on the second floor

Brave enough to stay there?

The inn has a 24-hour front desk, a restaurant and a bar.

The inn itself does not tell the ghost stories on its website.

La Concha Hotel

Key West, Monroe County

The story

La Concha opened on January 22, 1926, and at six stories it was the tallest building in Key West. Tennessee Williams finished writing A Streetcar Named Desire here.

Key West ghost tours tell of cold spots, lights that flicker, and an elevator that stops on the fifth floor with no one in it.

What guests say they've seen and heard

• Cold spots and flickering lights
• The elevator stopping on the fifth floor with no one in it
• A shadowy figure on the upper floors

Brave enough to stay there?

La Concha is part of Marriott's Autograph Collection.

The hotel itself does not tell a ghost story. These reports come from Key West ghost tours and travel writers.