Inn at Carnall Hall

Originally built in 1905 as a women's dormitory on the University of Arkansas campus, this elegant building is named for English professor Ella Carnall, who died of typhoid fever.

The Inn at Carnall Hall occupies a stately building at 465 North Arkansas Avenue on the campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The structure was built in 1905 as a women's dormitory — one of the first residence halls on the campus — and was named in memory of Professor Ella Howlson Carnall, a beloved English instructor at the university who died suddenly of typhoid fever just before the dormitory's completion. The building served as a women's residence hall for decades before being converted to a fraternity house, then to university offices and classrooms. In 2003, after extensive renovation, the building reopened as a fifty-room boutique hotel with Ella's Restaurant on the ground floor — the restaurant named, like the building itself, for the professor whose spirit is said to have never left.

Professor Ella Carnall is the ghost most strongly associated with the inn. She has appeared as a full-bodied apparition in several rooms throughout the building — a woman in period dress moving through the hallways with quiet purpose, visible for moments before fading. In other instances, her manifestation is partial: witnesses describe seeing only a torso in a formal gown, without a head or feet, gliding through rooms and corridors. She is described by those who have encountered her as a friendly and calm presence — not threatening, not mischievous, but watchful, as though she continues to look after the young women who once lived in her building.

Guests have reported finding indentations on their beds as though someone had sat down on the mattress — the impression clearly visible but no one present to account for it. Photographs taken inside guest rooms have revealed anomalies upon later review: reflections in mirrors and polished surfaces that appear to show a figure seated in furniture, visible only in the image and not to the naked eye at the time the photo was taken. Light fixtures throughout the hotel turn on by themselves, particularly in rooms that were once part of the original dormitory layout. The fire alarm system has triggered repeatedly without identifiable cause, a pattern that former restaurant staff noted occurred most frequently during weddings and anniversaries — events that seem to draw heightened activity.

A portrait of Professor Carnall hangs above the fireplace in the common area, described by guests and staff as having unsettling blue eyes that seem to follow the viewer. Ella never married, and the portrait captures a direct, intelligent gaze that guests have described as the kind that seems aware of everything happening in the room.

The basement is considered the most active area in the building. A paranormal investigator who stayed at the inn placed a rempod — an electromagnetic field detection device — at the foot of the bed in the basement room. Around midnight, the device activated and continued to register activity for approximately twenty-five minutes before going silent for the remainder of the night. Throughout the hotel, guests have reported unexplained footsteps echoing through the hallways, doors opening and closing on their own, and sudden drops in temperature. Shadowy figures have been observed gliding past windows from the outside, and visitors describe feeling unseen presences in the quiet corners of the building, particularly on the upper floors where the original dormitory rooms retain their vintage architectural character — creaky wooden floors, high ceilings, and the atmosphere of a building that has been continuously occupied for over 120 years.

The Inn at Carnall Hall continues to operate as a hotel and event venue. Ella's Restaurant serves French cuisine in the ground-floor dining room, and the hotel's haunted reputation has become part of its appeal. Professor Carnall's portrait watches from above the fireplace, and the spirit that bears her name continues to be felt in the halls she never occupied in life but has apparently claimed in death.