Overview

The Haunted Shanley Hotel in Napanoch, NY

The Shanley Hotel is a popular place in the tiny city of Napanoch, NY. The area itself is quite secluded and surrounded by the Shawangunk Mountains, Vernooy Kill State Forest, and Witch’s Hole Forest. Such ominous-sounding neighbors should indeed raise a red flag for anyone in tune with the paranormal. Not only is the Shanley supremely haunted, but it is haunted to a point that any guest who stays there must sign a waiver so as not to hold the hotel liable for any paranormal attack they may incur.

History of the Shanley Hotel

The hotel was originally built all the way back in 1845 and started as a luxury hotel for a time before becoming a bordello. The Shanley was originally called Ritch’s Hotel in 1845 and was renamed as the Mansion House. After changing hands several times, the hotel burned to the ground in 1895. Eventually, it was rebuilt and opened for business as the Colonial Hotel and again held a few different names until it was acquired by James Shanley in 1907. Shanley totally renovated and expanded the Hotel with the most luxurious and accommodating features for the times. It was so fancy that celebrities and major political figures often made it a vacationing spot. However, success for James and his wife Beatrice would not last as they incurred a slew of tragic deaths in their respective families with three of their own children dying. Times grew harder with Prohibition and the hotel resorted to being a speakeasy as well as a bordello once more. The Shanleys eventually passed away, and the hotel’s ownership changed many times, yet the three-story, thirty-five-room Dutch Colonial-style hotel is still a major draw, especially with the paranormal crowd.

Ghosts & Paranormal Activity at the Shanley Hotel

The most commonly reported paranormal activity is audible. Guests and employees alike have reported entering empty rooms and hearing the chatter as if a crowded party was going on yet nobody was in the room at all. Laughter and whispers have been heard in every part of the hotel’s property, including out in the yard! Beatrice Shanley’s ghost has been seen over the years, manifesting from a misty form, into a near full-bodied apparition in a white, 1920s-style dress, She is audibly crying, presumably for her dead children. James Shanley was fond of whistling, and to this very day, guests speak about a mysterious whistling noise in their rooms and up and down the hall with no “body” in sight. Chairs have been seen moving on their own, as well as one guest reported that the front door to the hotel opened up completely to her without anyone touching the door.

One of the more mysterious paranormal entities in the hotel is that said to be a man who died at some point during the hotel’s early years. Psychic mediums claim that he seems to frequent the basement and third-floor area of the hotel the most and there is an overwhelming feeling of his presence in particular with the hotel’s central staircase. The feeling is that there was some death possibly connected to that stairwell and it is theorized he is the one who caused it.