These hotels are haunted, hallowed or just plain macabre

In an age when boutique hotels vie for dollars with Instagram-worthy amenities, some properties have discovered that their greatest asset may be their checkered past.

A growing number of hotels built in such places as former prisons, cult compounds, defunct military installations and graveyards are banking on dark, dramatic histories.

Here are seven places to stay where the mood has a hint of the macabre.

McMenamins Edgefield, about 15 miles outside Portland, offers a relaxing atmosphere where guests can sip craft beer, book a massage or swing a golf club.

Few guests realize that they’re staying at what was once known as the Cedars, believed to be among the first detention centers for women accused of carrying sexually transmitted infections. The Cedars opened in 1917 as part of a public panic around social hygiene, fueled by the fear of male troops being infected. Thousands of women were confined, often without due process, across the country.

“Of course it was always the woman’s fault,” Caitlin Popp, a tour guide manager with McMenamins, said. “It was very much of its time.”

The Cedars closed in 1923 after negative press when Ruth Brown, a Black woman, successfully sued for freedom. A portion of the site became a “poor farm,” a publicly funded institution that provided food, shelter and employment. Then it was converted into a military academy for boys, doctor and nurse staff housing, and a residence for older adults until it fell into disrepair in the 1980s. McMenamins began its revival in 1990 with a “cleansing” performed by a pipe-and-drum band.

Set on a 44-acre campus designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and designated a national historic landmark, this building, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in the late 1800s, served as a mental hospital until 1974.

Olmsted conceived the tree-filled campus to be open so that patients wouldn’t feel confined and could experience nature daily. The complex followed the model of Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a pioneer in care for the mentally ill, to reject almshouses and jails in favor of more livable environments.

“His model for treatment, fresh air, helpful work, socialization, a bucolic setting, getting out of the busy, dirty cities resonated,” said Paris Roselli, president of the nonprofit Richardson Olmsted Campus.

After the hospital closed, it “just rotted,” Roselli said. Community activists fought for it to be transferred to the nonprofit.

In 2017, the nonprofit Richardson Center Corp. converted three buildings into an 88-room boutique hotel and meeting space with a ballroom and a wine bar. Kirkbride’s large hallways with natural light were preserved.

Legend has it that the hotel was built on a private burial ground, said Anna Lardinois, a writer and the owner of Gothic Milwaukee, a company that offers tours of spooky sites in the city. Guests have reported feeling haunted presences on the second floor and seeing a shadowy figure on the ballroom balcony.

Among the Pfister’s frequent guests are visiting Major League Baseball teams in town to play the Brewers. Some of those players have recounted strange happenings at the hotel like odd noises and flickering lights; Los Angeles Dodgers star Mookie Betts has said he refuses to stay there because of possible ghosts. Rapper Megan Thee Stallion shared on social media that she had engaged in ghost hunting during her stay in 2021.

The Crescent was built in 1886 in the Ozarks near springs with water believed to have healing properties. In 1937, Norman G. Baker, a celebrity millionaire who claimed to be a doctor despite having no training, turned the Crescent into a hospital, declaring that he could cure various ailments. Those claims — including that he could cure cancer — led to his conviction on mail fraud charges.

In 2019, archaeologists uncovered bizarre ephemera from Baker’s era in the hotel’s soil, including bottles of secret elixirs, remnants of bone saws and disturbing medical specimens in jars. Much is on display in what was once the morgue.

These days, the Crescent, which claims to be America’s most haunted hotel, hosts a murder mystery weekend and a paranormal conference, both annual events. Guests can take ghost tours designed either for adults or for children ages 5 to 12. Ghost photos and guest stories are shared by paranormal influencers on TikTok and YouTube. The hotel today is elegant, with impressive views, chandeliers and lush gardens.

The Kimpton Armory Hotel, which opened in 2020, occupies the historic Bozeman Armory. The Art Deco building, completed in 1941, served as a base for the Montana National Guard for more than 60 years.

The wartime origins are impossible to ignore. The rifle room, soundproof music room (for the military band) and 18-inch-thick walls all serve as reminders. The former gymnasium and drill floor have been transformed into the Armory Music Hall.

Military retirees often visit the Tune Up, a bar that pays tribute to the regiment, said Cory Lawrence, CEO of travel company Off the Beaten Path, who led the restoration.

“They love their experience,” he said, “because the remnants are still there.”

On Beacon Hill’s cobblestone streets stands an audacious hotel conversion. The Liberty Hotel, which opened in 2007, occupies the bones of the Charles Street Jail, a Gothic Revival fortress that was home to New England’s most notorious inmates (mobster Whitey Bulger, Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, and anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti among them) for 140 years.

Today, some of the original cells are visible as conversation pieces. The 90-foot-high rotunda, once the jail’s focal point for guards monitoring cellblocks, is a dramatic lobby. Catwalks are used as sitting areas or for events.

The hotel’s restaurants embrace the history with names like Clink and Alibi, the former being the location of the jail’s “drunk tank.”

Perched above Tomales Bay in Marin County, the Lodge at Marconi occupies one of Northern California’s more bizarre sites.

Originally owned by Guglielmo Marconi, a pioneer in radio technology, the site was used as a radio receiving station.

In the early 1960s, the notorious drug rehabilitation program Synanon purchased the property as its headquarters. What began as an innovative approach to addiction treatment transformed into a cult, leading to the stockpiling of weapons and allegations of attempted murder.