HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Seward's oldest surviving hotel, built in 1916, on the National Register of Historic Places and locally associated with the ghost of Fannie Guthery.
308 Adams St, Seward, AK 99664
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
A working hotel; standard nightly room rates apply, see website for current pricing.
Access
Limited Access
A three-story 1916 building without an elevator; narrow original stairwells.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1916 · Seward's oldest surviving hotel building, built in 1916 · Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, December 2, 1980 · Hosted President Warren G. Harding's 1923 territorial visit and 1924 round-the-world flight pilots
The building that houses the Van Gilder Hotel was constructed in 1916 by E.L. Van Gilder, a businessman from Kellogg, Idaho, who came north to invest in the Alaska Territory. Architect William Kingsley designed the structure as a two-story office building with a basement; partway through construction, Van Gilder decided to add a third floor. Economic pressure forced Van Gilder to sell shortly after completion to Charles Brown, a partner in the Brown & Hawkins general store, one of Seward's oldest businesses.
The finished building held 27 guest rooms across its first and second floors, seven more rooms in the basement, and third-floor space used by Masonic and Odd Fellows lodges as well as the Seward Women's Club and local Christian Scientists. In 1923, the hotel hosted the party of President Warren G. Harding during his territorial visit to Alaska, and in 1924 it lodged pilots from the U.S. Army Air Service's first around-the-world flight, an event many of Seward's roughly 1,000 residents turned out to see.
Over the following decades the building operated under several names, including the Hotel Renwald in the 1950s and '60s, and later served as apartments and as a dormitory for the Seward Skills Center before that state lease ended in 1978. It was refurbished and returned to operation as the Van Gilder Hotel, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 2, 1980, and continues to operate today as Seward's oldest surviving hotel.
Sources
The Van Gilder Hotel's signature legend centers on Fannie Guthery (her name also appears in some sources as Guthrie-Baehm or Guthry-Baehm), who was shot and killed by her husband inside the hotel in 1947. Local and news accounts describe the killing as a domestic tragedy rather than offering graphic detail, and hotel staff interviewed by Alaska's News Source in 2025 said they understood the circumstances only in general terms. Sources differ on the precise room, most commonly citing 201 or 202, and a self-published local book, The Ghost of Fannie Guthry-Baehm, has retold the case as a piece of Seward history.
Staff and guests describe Fannie's reported presence as that of a tall woman with long blonde hair in a blue dress, most often associated with the second-floor room where she died. Reported occurrences include cleaning supplies and small objects being moved, doors and windows opening or closing on their own, an impression left on a freshly made bed, and occasional reports of the building shaking. Current hotel management has described the reported presence as benign rather than threatening. The hotel is regularly cited in Alaska travel and hospitality writing as one of the state's most consistently reported haunted hotels.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
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