Andrew Jackson Hotel

A ghost named Armand pushes guests out of bed in Room 208, and five boys who died in the 1794 Quarter fire are still heard playing in the courtyard. A housekeeper ghost quietly re-fluffs pillows in rooms the staff just cleaned. Request 208 if you want the full experience.

Guests at the Andrew Jackson Hotel keep waking up on the floor. The ghost of a boy named Armand, who haunts Room 208, has a habit of shoving sleepers out of bed, flicking the lights on, and laughing from somewhere near the ceiling.

The hotel sits on one of the saddest plots of ground in the French Quarter. In 1792 the Spanish Colonial government opened a boarding school here for boys orphaned by New Orleans' yellow fever outbreaks. Two years later, the 1794 fire that consumed much of the Quarter took the school with it, along with five boys trapped inside. The U.S. Federal Courthouse that replaced the school is where a much-older Andrew Jackson was once held in contempt of court and fined for obstruction of justice after the Battle of New Orleans. The courthouse came down near the turn of the 20th century, and the current hotel went up on the same footprint in 1890.

Those five boys are the reason people keep walking away from this place with a story. Guests and staff describe hearing them running in the courtyard at 3 a.m., chasing each other past rooms that face the brick-walled patio. One guest told a hotel blog he heard what sounded like cereal being poured in an empty room, then a child laughing. Another described a little boy sitting in front of a TV that switched on by itself.

Armand, the Room 208 ghost, is the one everyone remembers. Accounts of how he died vary from source to source. One version has him falling from a balcony; another version says it wasn't an accident. The details get fuzzier the more you read. The behavior stays the same across every account: giggling, tugging covers, cold patches, and the occasional shove. Guests who've paid extra to stay in 208 have checked out in the middle of the night.

There's also a housekeeper who nobody hired. Staff find pillows fluffed on floors they just made up, towels refolded, chairs rotated toward the windows. She's seen most often on the second floor and in the lobby, and the housekeeping crew has learned to stop apologizing when guests ask why their room looks rearranged.

A second-floor figure that locals sometimes describe as Andrew Jackson himself is the one detail to treat skeptically. Paranormal investigator Tim Nealon, who's spent nights in the hotel, has questioned that identification. The Jackson connection is pure Quarter folklore, and the man himself never lived here. But the boys, the housekeeper, and Armand keep showing up in independent reports across decades.

It's a small hotel, 22 rooms, no elevator, with walls that feel close and hallways that take odd turns. That intimacy probably explains why the stories cluster here instead of at bigger French Quarter properties. You can hear footsteps through the plaster. You can hear giggling, too, if you're in the right room at the wrong hour.

Request 208 if you want the full experience. Ask for a room on the opposite end of the second floor if you don't.