Boardman House Inn

A bed and breakfast in the Connecticut River Valley with genuine 19th-century character. Guests who stay here sometimes report sharing the space with someone — or something — that isn't on the reservation.

The Boardman House Inn is one of East Haddam's most architecturally significant Victorian mansions, built around 1860 for Norman Sweet Boardman, a wealthy silversmith whose family dominated the Connecticut River Valley's britannia ware industry. Norman's father, Luther Boardman, had established his silverware factory in East Haddam in 1842 after inventing a patented mold for britannia spoons. By 1864, father and son had entered a prosperous partnership under the name L. Boardman & Son, and the grand Italianate villa at 8 Norwich Road reflected their considerable fortune.

The house features classic Victorian elegance with twelve-foot ceilings, elaborate cornice brackets, a distinctive three-story tower, and a grand front porch with heavy square columns and arched openings. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1983 as part of the East Haddam Historic District, the mansion visually competes with the nearby Goodspeed Opera House for architectural prominence along the riverfront.

Norman Boardman lived in the house until his death on July 21, 1905, at age sixty-four. He's buried alongside generations of his family in River View Cemetery beside St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. The silverware empire he inherited did not long survive him--in 1907, a devastating fire destroyed the main office and factory, effectively ending the L. Boardman & Son company that had been producing silverware for over sixty years.

The primary haunting at the inn centers on a male ghost dressed in period clothing who has been witnessed smoking a cigar in the library. The spectral gentleman materializes among the antiques and nineteenth-century furnishings, seemingly at home in his surroundings. His identity remains unknown, though many speculate he may be Norman Boardman himself, or perhaps his father Luther, returning to the elegant home they built during the height of their prosperity.

The scent of tobacco smoke occasionally fills rooms where no smoking has occurred for decades, a phantom aroma that appears without explanation and fades just as mysteriously. Guests have also reported the unsettling sensation of being watched during their stays, as if unseen eyes follow their movements through the corridors and parlors.

East Haddam itself is steeped in supernatural legend. The area was called "Machimoodus" by the Wangunk Indians, meaning "Place of Bad Noises"--mysterious rumblings attributed to the god Hobomoko that have echoed from nearby Mount Tom for centuries. The Boardman House sits in the heart of this historically haunted landscape, mere steps from the Goodspeed Opera House which also has its own reported phantoms, and not far from the abandoned ghost town of Johnsonville.

The inn served various purposes after the Boardman family era, including time as an antiques shop, before opening as a luxury bed and breakfast in 2010. Now recognized by Yankee Magazine as one of Connecticut's finest inns, it welcomes guests who appreciate both its Victorian grandeur and its resident spirits.