Haunted Hotels in New Orleans: The History Behind the Ghosts

Three French Quarter hotels come up in almost every list of haunted places to stay: the Andrew Jackson, the Hotel Monteleone, and the Bourbon Orleans. Each has a ghost story. Each also has a documented history underneath it, and in each case the two are only loosely connected.

The Andrew Jackson Hotel

The current building on Royal Street dates to the late 1800s. The ghost story goes back further. According to ghost tours, the site once held a boys' boarding school (some versions call it an orphanage) that burned in the 1794 fire with five boys inside. The boys are said to play in the hotel today, and Room 208 gets named as the most active room.

Here's where it gets complicated. The 1794 fire was real, and it swept the whole city. Whether it burned a school on this exact spot is another matter. One researcher who dug into the property's history found no evidence of a fire there, and a tour company's own write-up records guests asking whether it ever happened. What the record does support is that the site later held a courthouse, where Andrew Jackson was fined for contempt of court after the Battle of New Orleans.

Hotel Monteleone

The Monteleone's best-known ghost is Maurice Begere, a small child said to have stayed at the hotel with his parents in the late 1800s. In the hotel's own telling, he died in the hotel, and his mother kept coming back year after year hoping to see him. One night he appeared and told her not to cry. Guests report a child's presence on the 14th floor, which is really the 13th, since the hotel skipped that number.

The retellings don't agree on the details. Some versions have his father killed in a carriage accident and his mother dying of grief soon after. The hotel says a paranormal research group investigated in 2003 and believed it made contact with more than a dozen spirits. No independent record of the Begere family turned up in the sources used for this piece, so it's best held as legend.

The Bourbon Orleans

This one has the heaviest history of the three. The Orleans Ballroom dates to 1817 and was built alongside a theater. In 1881 the buildings passed to the Sisters of the Holy Family, a Black religious order founded in the early 1840s by Henriette DeLille and two other free women of color. For 83 years the property served as their convent, school, and orphanage, and the sisters cared for the sick through yellow fever epidemics. In 1964 it was sold and became a hotel.

The ghost stories, as guides tell them, include a dancer in the ballroom, a figure in a nun's habit in one of the rooms, and a Confederate soldier in the halls. The ghosts are the guests' addition. The history belongs to the sisters, and it's the more remarkable story.

Before you book

Hotels know that a ghost helps sell rooms. That doesn't make the stories false, but it's a good reason to look for the history underneath, which is usually better than the haunting. If a story can be checked, check it. If it can't, enjoy it as what it is: a legend.

For how the city got this many hauntings in the first place, read New Orleans Ghost History. For the other famous stories, including the Muriel's ghost and the LaLaurie house, see Haunted New Orleans Stories: Which Parts Are True?. The whole topic is mapped in the Haunted New Orleans guide.

Meet the Chief

If you'd rather have fiction than folklore, meet Chief Marcus Thibodeaux, a New Orleans police chief and former quarterback who has spent too many years squinting into other people's lies. His origin story, The Golden Boy, is free when you join the list. His ongoing cases, including the ones where he calls in a tarot reader, are on the Patreon.

Where I got this

• The Ghosts of the Haunted Andrew Jackson Hotel, Ghost City Tours, for the school-and-fire story as tours tell it and the 1890s rebuild
• Darkness in the Room: A Haunting at the Andrew Jackson Hotel, The Line-Up, where the researcher found no evidence of a fire on the site
• Ghost hunt at the Andrew Jackson, Ghost City Tours, for Room 208 and the guests who questioned the fire
• Andrew Jackson Hotel, Waymarking, for the courthouse and the contempt fine
• The story of Maurice Begere, Hotel Monteleone and Hotel Monteleone's Haunted History, the hotel's own accounts, and Haunted New Orleans Hotels, Explore Louisiana, for a version with a different ending
• Hotel Monteleone's Unsettled Guests, Michael Kleen, for the 13th-floor detail
• Past Touches Bourbon Orleans Hotel in Spirited Ways, PCMA and 1964: The Orleans Ballroom, New Orleans Magazine, for the convent years and the 1964 sale
• The Ghosts of the Haunted Bourbon Orleans, Ghost City Tours and The Orleans Ballroom Celebrates 200-year Anniversary, French Quarterly, for the 1817 date
• Bourbon Orleans, American Roads, for the sisters' founders and the ghost stories guides tell