Claremont Club & Spa

This white castle-like resort has sat in the Berkeley Hills overlooking San Francisco Bay since 1915. Historic Hotels of America named it one of America's 25 most haunted hotels — which is saying something for a place that also does yoga retreats.

San Antonio Spurs players Tim Duncan and Jeff Ayres made national headlines in March 2014 when they both claimed the Claremont Hotel was "haunted to the rafters." Ayres heard a child crying from inside his room before he entered it--but when hotel staff investigated, no one was there. "I really heard voices and a baby in the room, and there wasn't anybody in there. It was crazy," Ayres told reporters. Duncan backed him up: "I definitely heard something. I'd rather not stay there again."

The hotel they were so eager to leave stands on land steeped in tragedy. In the mid-19th century, William Butler Thornburgh, a Kansas farmer who struck it rich during the California Gold Rush, built an English-style castle here for his family atop 13,000 acres in the Berkeley Hills. On July 14, 1901, wildfire swept through the hills, reducing the estate to ashes--only the horse stables survived. The heartbroken Thornburgh family sold the property, and after years of construction delays caused by the 1906 earthquake and the Panic of 1907, the Claremont Hotel finally opened its doors on May 3, 1915.

The spirits seem never to have left. The most famous is a six-year-old girl who visits guests at night, reaching out as if to say hello. Some believe she died in the 1901 fire that destroyed the Thornburgh estate. Others say she died within the hotel itself. Her favorite haunt is Room 422 on the fourth floor, where guests report televisions switching on while they shower and lights flickering without cause. Bellman Earl Van Dyke, a longtime employee, describes her presence: "It's not a bad spirit, not a fearful spirit. I feel it's something gentle."

Mrs. Thornburgh herself is said to remain at the Claremont. She appears as a Victorian woman in a high-necked collar who wanders the verandas and gardens. According to local legend, she died of a broken heart after the fire destroyed her home and her only daughter eloped to Europe with an Englishman she met at a party. Guests have spotted her reflection in mirrors, only to have it vanish when they try to take a photograph.

A third spirit occupies what staff call "the most haunted room"--a young woman who drowned herself in the bathtub after being jilted by her fiance approximately a century ago. The hotel will not say which room. Guests on the haunted history tours, however, are granted access to areas not usually open to the public, including this chamber.

The fourth floor sees the most intense activity. Staff report elevators arriving at floors where no one pressed the button, buckets of water tipping over by themselves, and mysterious shoves from behind. The Claremont has been named among Historic Hotels of America's "Most Haunted Hotels" in both 2021 and 2024, and the hotel offers guided haunted history tours each October. Led by loyalty concierge supervisor Laura Christensen, the tours take guests through the most legendary halls--where past visitors have reportedly refused to check out. Not because of the service. Because they never left at all.