Casa Monica Resort & Spa

Built in 1888 by architect Franklin W. Smith and purchased by Henry Flagler four months after opening. The lavish Moorish-Spanish style hotel was voted in the 2024 Top 25 Historic Hotels of America Most Haunted Hotels.

Casa Monica Resort opened on New Year's Day 1888, built by Boston hardware merchant Franklin W. Smith. After only a year, financial troubles forced Smith to sell to Standard Oil co-founder Henry Flagler for $325,000, who rebranded it Hotel Cordova. Smith died in poverty in 1911. Fire destroyed the hotel in 1895, requiring complete rebuilding. Flagler abandoned the property when the stock market crashed, closing in 1932. It served as St. Johns County courthouse from 1965 until the late 1970s before Richard Kessler restored it, reopening as Casa Monica in December 1999. The fourth floor has the highest concentration of activity—children run through corridors even when vacated. The Lady in White wanders hallways, vanishing when approached. Room 511 holds the darkest history: a man checked in, never left, and staff found his body hanging from the ceiling. Housekeepers report icy winds and cold spots. In Room 411, guests see apparitions of men in old-fashioned clothing. Late at night, waltz music plays from nowhere as 1920s apparitions dance in the lobby. Franklin W. Smith himself may still haunt the property—a medium saw a man with big burly sideburns pacing the Kessler Suite, matching Smith's description. The medium sensed his heartbreak over the original terracotta roof being replaced. Housekeepers work in pairs due to frequent ghostly encounters.