Saybrook Inn

A stately waterfront hotel in historic Old Saybrook, the Saybrook Inn overlooks the Connecticut River. Its elegant grounds harbor a tragic spirit who refuses to leave the water's edge.

Where the Connecticut River meets Long Island Sound, Saybrook Point has been a site of human habitation for millennia. The Algonquin people first made their homes here, followed by English colonists who established Fort Saybrook in 1635—one of Connecticut's oldest settlements. Today, the Saybrook Point Resort occupies land steeped in tragedy, loss, and unexplained phenomena that date back nearly four centuries.

The site's most ancient spirit may be Lady Alice Fenwick, wife of George Fenwick, the first Governor of Saybrook Colony. Lady Alice arrived in May 1638 aboard a ship carrying boxes and barrels of English seeds, cuttings, and saplings. Described as "the most magical and mysterious woman in Connecticut River history," she possessed remarkable skills in hunting, sailing, horsemanship, and herbalism. She died tragically in 1645, shortly after giving birth to her second daughter. Her grieving husband was so devastated that he returned to England within two years, leaving his wife buried on Tomb Hill overlooking the river she had loved.

For 225 years, Lady Fenwick rested undisturbed. Then in 1870, the railroad arrived. Workers exhumed her grave to clear a path for the tracks, and when her coffin was opened, those present were astonished to find her remains remarkably preserved—including her distinctive long, red hair. Locks of her auburn tresses were cut and distributed among onlookers, and for years afterward, visitors chipped pieces from her gravestone seeking her "magical powers." A wrought-iron fence had to be erected to protect what remained.

The desecration did not go unnoticed. On a January night in 1900, something strange happened at the railroad engine house—built on the exact spot where Lady Fenwick had been buried. Night watchman Arthur Beebe was polishing metalwork on the locomotives when, just after midnight, the bell tongues on six locomotives began to strike of their own accord. The ringing "gradually increased in speed until they were all vibrating with the rapidity of electric gongs." Then came footsteps—what Beebe described as "a ghostly clog dance performed on the boiler jackets." When asked about the disturbance, Beebe replied matter-of-factly: "They're the same old ghosts that have always made this place their headquarters."

At the nearby train station, station agent Charles Beecher witnessed account books suddenly lifted from his desk and "slammed upon the floor." The books then "arose, apparently of their own volition, and deposited themselves upon the desk" again.

The modern resort was built in 1989 after the Tagliatela family purchased and demolished the notorious Terra Mar hotel—a glamorous 1957 establishment that had hosted Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, Jayne Mansfield, and Tom Jones, but was ultimately raided by the FBI in 1975 for illegal gambling. Whatever spirits the demolition disturbed seem to have remained.

Today, guests encounter a translucent woman in a white wedding gown near the docks. Local legend says she was "buried alive somewhere in the area"—a fate that may explain her restless attachment to the waterfront. One fitness club member reported: "I seen near the docs a lady in white with a wedding gown, totally see-through. I have been told that was buried alive. A gate was placed around her grave to restrict her roaming." Another witness described seeing her "completely see-through" standing at the water's edge.

The spirit does not confine herself to the docks. Guests have felt her presence in their rooms—the sensation of an unseen body sitting on beds, and more disturbingly, physical contact. One overnight visitor in 2018 described the experience: "I felt the bed sink next to me then a shove on my back! I jumped up and put the light on but no one was there and my two Shepherds didn't move."

Perhaps most unsettling, the phantom bride appears in wedding photographs. Couples celebrating their unions at the waterfront venue have discovered an uninvited guest when reviewing their pictures—a spectral woman in bridal attire, captured on film though no one saw her during the ceremony. Her identity remains unknown, but she seems drawn to these celebrations of love, perhaps mourning a wedding of her own that ended in tragedy.

Whether the woman in white is Lady Fenwick—disturbed from her rest and wandering the grounds where she once cultivated her beloved English gardens—or another lost soul entirely, the haunting continues. The railroad that desecrated the colonial burial ground is long gone, but the spirits it awakened remain at Saybrook Point, where the river meets the sound and the boundary between worlds grows thin.