San Francisco Ghosts

5. Queen Anne's Hotel

San Francisco, CA

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The next stop on our journey is said to be one of the most haunted buildings in all of San Francisco. Queen Anne's Hotel has only been a hotel since 1980; however, the building itself was built in 1890 and was intended to be a school for girls. The Mary Lake School for Girls opened in 1890 and was an etiquette school for well to-do girls. As the head-mistress, as well as the favorite mistress of the building's financer, Senator James Fair, Mary Lake was very devoted to the school. She taught the senator's daughters and daughters of prominent businessmen of the time. The senator died in 1894 and the school was open for no more than ten years and by the turn of the century the building was sold and converted to a gentleman's club. Mary Lake was devastated by the loss of her school and disappeared from San Francisco. The building remained a gentleman's club for a few years, and the building was spared during the 1906 earthquake. The building changed ownership many times in the following decades, and in 1980 it was purchased and renovated to its former Victorian glory, and reopened as the Queen Anne's Hotel. The hotel has forty-eight rooms and several suits; however, there is one remnant of the former school. Mary Lake is said to have returned to San Francisco and inhabits one of the rooms. Room 410 is said to be the former office of Mary Lake. Visitors to this room have reported very unusual activities. Many people have reported seeing a ghostly figure, while others have reported someone continuing the upkeep like any caring head mistress. Luggage has been put away into drawers, pillows picked up off the floor, and some people have even reported the feeling that they have been tucked in. Also, in several parts of the hotel, people report running into cold spots, that come and go quickly, but are very intense. Cold spots are often associated with ghostly happenings. The building is so well known for its head-mistress ghost that the popular television show, Haunted Hotels, from the Travel Channel visited the hotel for one of the episodes. Although no apparition was seen or recorded, there was much activity on their seismic readers. Today, all the rooms and suites are available for guests, including the ever-popular room 410.