Stafford's Perry Hotel

The only surviving luxury resort hotel from the original 20 built in the Petoskey area in 1899. The hotel has been in continuous operation for over 125 years, making it one of Michigan's most enduring grand hotels.

Stafford's Perry Hotel in Petoskey was constructed in 1899 by Dr. Norman J. Perry as a luxury resort for the wealthy tourists who flocked to the Little Traverse Bay region during the summer months. Of the approximately twenty luxury resort hotels built in the Petoskey area at the turn of the century, the Perry is the only one still in operation, a survivor that has outlasted all of its contemporaries. It is believed to be haunted by a woman who committed suicide there in 1902, just three years after the hotel opened.

The hotel's most well-known ghost is an elderly woman wearing a white nightgown who has been nicknamed Doris by the staff. Doris's apparition is most frequently encountered in the hotel's library and the garden area outside. She is typically seen floating through the upstairs rooms near the library, moving books from shelf to shelf as though reorganizing the collection according to a system known only to her. She has also been known to peer out the upstairs windows above the garden, her pale face visible to guests walking the grounds below.

A second, more disturbing spectral figure has also been reported at the Perry Hotel. Guests have encountered a tall, headless man wearing a black cloak, a figure whose appearance has terrified those who stumble upon him in the hotel's hallways and public areas. During a seasonal ghost tour of the Perry Hotel, a tourist allegedly captured a photograph of the headless figure, who appeared to be dressed in the cloak and attire of a stagecoach driver from the mid-1800s, predating the hotel itself and suggesting that the ground may have been haunted before the building was ever constructed.

Paranormal investigators who have stayed at the hotel have reported detecting high levels of electromagnetic energy in specific rooms and hallways, and have captured images of strange mists and orbs in photographs taken throughout the building. Stafford's Hospitality purchased the Perry Hotel in 1989 and has maintained the property as a historic boutique hotel. The Little Traverse History Museum has documented the Perry Hotel's history, and the hotel is included on multiple lists of Michigan's haunted accommodations. For guests who book the rooms nearest the library, Doris may rearrange their reading material during the night.