NEW ORLEANS, LA.
In the Garden District of New Orleans, La., in a serene, peaceful setting on 4th Street, the historic 1891
Castle Inn sits among the elegant and opulent mansions, oak tree-lined sidewalks and famous streetcar of
St. Charles Avenue. Currently up for sale for the asking price of $1.35 million dollars, not only is it advertised
as a 9-room 11.5-bath 19th century classic, but it's description includes the following words: Certified
Haunted.
The Castle Inn at one time was a plantation in the 1800s and a long, wood-framed, two-story house was
constructed sometime during the early to mid- 1800s. The reason the house is so narrow in front was that in
those days you were taxed based on the amount of frontage seen from the street. In or around 1891, Alva
Schnitt, a man of some renown about the city, bought the house and had it torn down to be replaced by a
three-story mansion as a gift to his wife. While Schnitt was a prominent figure who ran the New Orleans
School District, he also was one of the leaders of an organization called, “The White Man’s League” whose
mission in many ways mirrored that of the Klu Klux Klan.
Mr. Schnitt passed away in the home of natural causes and by the time the 1920s Depression Era rolled
around, the Castle Inn, like many mansions in the city became a great financial burden for their owners. It
was in this climate that the inn became a rooming house in order to generate much-needed income. The
mansion changed owners relatively often until the 1950s when the Allison family purchased the home. It
remained in the family until 1998, when George Allison sold it to Andrew Craig and Karen Bacharach. At this
point the new owners renamed it the 1891 Castle Inn and extensive renovations began.
When Andrew Craig and Karen Bacharach took over, they began to notice strange occurrences within the
building. Staff members repeatedly saw the figure of a man standing by the window in Room 11 and when
guests began to report their own experiences, they sat up and took notice.
A check with the previous owners revealed no prior paranormal incidents they were aware of. Intrigued,
the present owners started to pay more attention to what was happening. As first skeptical, they soon
became believers as they could not keep up with the experiences happening there as guests began to fill up .
It is said the second and third floors seem to house the most activity.
Activity includes objects moving by themselves, appliances turning themselves on and off, footsteps,
various unexplained sounds and faucets in empty bathrooms turning on. A male figure has also been
witnessed standing on the front porch - the one unusual element to the sighting is he appears to be
transparent! The owners now believe there are definitely at least two spirits present at the inn.
One ghost is believed to be a man named Henry, who was thought to be a former servant - first on the
plantation that used to occupy the grounds and then at the hotel - and served as a horse carriage driver. A
light-skinned black man who spoke at least three languages, Henry was quite the ladies' man who enjoyed
the finer things in life - sometimes to excess. One night after an evening of revelry, Henry fell asleep with
either a lit cigar going or knocked over a heating pot. A fire resulted, and sadly, Henry suffocated to death.
Henry remains in the main mansion and is thought to be responsible for playing with electrical items
(especially the radio), whistling in the hallways and hiding objects on guests. One couple, searching the room
for their previous day's shopping receipts, thought to have been placed in a wallet, eventually found them in
the microwave oven inside their room. Ever the womanizer, females have felt their legs, hair or shoulders
caressed during sleep.
Another spirit thought to be present is that of a young girl. She is thought to have lived on the plantation
once located there before sub-division came. Tragically, she lost her life there in a drowning accident. In the
adjoining Bordello Mansion, considered to be the most haunted part of the hotel, women dream about a little
girl speaking to them at night and feel the bed move as if someone were bouncing up and down on it seeking
attention. She is seen wearing a white dress and likes to play with the faucets. She attempts to make contact
with female guests, perhaps missing her mother. She also has been known to show herself in an upstairs
window and the sounds of little feet can be heard in hallways. She might also roam the surrounding
neighborhood as sightings of her have taken place outside the mansion.
One of the recurring experiences guests have are of losing their keys. In many cases just shortly after
checking in, they come down from their rooms to report the objects have disappeared.
Drinking glasses will be moved from place to place when a guest goes to the bathroom. One guest
decided to have some fun with her room’s ghost by placing her hairbrush down only to find it moved when
she returned to the room. She continued this practice for a number of days over a two-week period with the
same result each time.
Many guests document their experiences in the inn’s guest book. One entry by Jon and Aly Brothers
dated July 27, 2001 read:
The ghosts kept us up two nights in a row! The first day our
TV kept coming unplugged. We’d leave and it would be unplugged
when we returned. This happened a total of three times.
The second night was amazing and frightening at the same
time. We saw this little girl by the stairway. My wife also saw
the male black ghost once or twice that night. So we finally
got to sleep around 5 a.m. Oh yeah, we also heard steps running
up and down our stairs and no one else was staying on
our side of the mansion that night. Around 5 a.m., the last
thing we heard was a little girl giggling.
On September 25, 2002, Kelly Pursley of Seatlle, who stayed in the Napoleon Room wrote:
The hurricane was starting to move in, and we were the only
ones in the house that night. Around 10:30 p.m., I heard what
sounded like furniture moving. At 11:30 p.m., I heard the distinct
sound of a small child�s music box playing in the hall. It
lasted over a minute. As soon as I laid my head down to go to
sleep, I had the sensation again of a soft caress on my foot
and up my leg. Sometime during the middle of the night, I
woke in a daze to feel the bed moving up and down, as if
someone was gently jumping on it. Quite a strange feeling!
When leaving the house at 4 a.m. to catch a taxi for an early
flight, my friend turned around to look up at the balcony of
our room and saw a dark figure in the window watching us
leave. Maybe he/she was sad to see us go?
The Bordello Room - most haunted room at the inn.
Photo by Jeff Belanger ghostvillage.com
1891 CASTLE INN
