A 1915 Berkeley Hills resort whose fourth-floor Room 422 is tied to the persistent legend of a young girl's ghost and a vanished 1901 estate fire.
41 Tunnel Rd, Berkeley, CA 94705
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$$
Luxury resort; nightly rates vary seasonally. Day-use spa and dining options also available.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Multi-story resort with elevators; sloping hillside grounds
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1915 · Tudor Revival Architecture · Charles W. Dickey design · Panama-Pacific Exposition era hotel · One of the tallest wooden buildings in the world (central tower) · 110-year continuous operation
The Claremont occupies a hillside parcel straddling the Berkeley-Oakland line, with formal address in Berkeley and tax jurisdiction historically split between the two cities. The land was originally part of Bill Thornburg's holdings; Thornburg, a Kansas farmer who had prospered in the California Gold Rush, built a castle-like family estate on the property that was destroyed by fire in 1901.
In 1905, Frank Havens won the land in a Monopoly-style checkers game, according to local lore reproduced on the resort's own history page. Plans for a grand hotel followed. Construction began under architect Charles W. Dickey and continued for several years, with Erik Lindblom investing substantial additional capital to complete the building. The hotel opened on May 3, 1915, timed to draw visitors from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition across the bay in San Francisco. At the time it was the largest hotel on the West Coast.
The Tudor Revival exterior, with its prominent half-timbering and 160-foot central tower, made the Claremont an immediate landmark. The tower is recognized as one of the tallest wooden structures in the world. The hotel has changed hands multiple times across the 20th century, passing from Lindblom in 1918 to Claude C. Gillum in 1937 and through a series of owners and operators since.
In May 2023, Ohana Real Estate Investors acquired the property for $163 million. On March 3, 2025, the resort exited the Fairmont group and rebranded as the Claremont Resort & Club, with HEI Hotels & Resorts taking over day-to-day management. The 110th anniversary was marked in May 2025. The resort celebrated this milestone with onsite events.
Nearby in the same Berkeley-Oakland border area, the California Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind (often shortened in folklore to the 'Asylum') burned in a separate 1875 fire; that earlier disaster is sometimes folded into Claremont lore by tour narrators, although the institution stood on a separate parcel.
Sources
According to Haunted Rooms America, Haunted Places, California Haunted Houses, and a 2023 SF Standard preview of the resort's then-new tour, the most persistent Claremont story centers on the fourth floor. Room 422 is most often named. Guests and staff report unexplained crying or laughter, the smell of cigarette smoke in non-smoking rooms, sudden cold spots, the sensation of being lightly touched or seated next to on the edge of a bed, and elevators that self-call to empty floors.
The lore connects the activity to a young girl said to have died on the property; some retellings tie her death to the 1901 fire that destroyed Bill Thornburg's earlier castle-like estate on the site, others to the separate 1875 fire at the nearby California Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind. No primary record names the child, and both fires predate the 1915 hotel.
In 2023, the resort launched its first official haunted history tour in time for Halloween, formalizing what staff had long shared informally with curious guests. SF Standard previewed the tour that September, and in 2024 the property was named to Historic Hotels of America's 'most haunted' shortlist, alongside the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn, as reported by Hoodline and KTVU.
The Berkeley-Oakland location and the resort's atmospheric Tudor architecture make the Claremont a recurring entry in Bay Area haunted round-ups. Specific witness names are rarely given in published accounts, which keeps the lore in the category of atmospheric tradition rather than documented case study; the resort itself leans into the ambiguity in its tour scripting.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Book a room at the 1915 Berkeley Hills resort. Guests interested in the legend can request fourth-floor rooms, the focus of the lore. The hotel began offering official 'haunted history' tours in 2023.
Seasonal walking tour of the resort's haunted spots, launched in 2023 around the Halloween season. Check the resort's events calendar for current dates and availability.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Eureka Springs, AR
The 1886 Crescent Hotel was built as a luxury Victorian resort atop the Ozark mountains of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, then briefly operated as a women's college before its most notorious chapter: Norman Baker's fraudulent cancer clinic from 1937 to 1940. Baker charged dying patients for treatments that offered no medical benefit, and the hotel retains his intact basement morgue.
Berkeley, CA
The Berkeley City Club was completed in 1930 to a design by Julia Morgan, commissioned by the Berkeley Women's City Club as a clubhouse, hotel, and social center for the city's professional women. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a California Historical Landmark, and is the rare Julia Morgan building that retains its original program as both private club and small hotel.
Estes Park, CO
The Stanley Hotel opened on July 4, 1909, built by Freelan Oscar Stanley, co-inventor of the Stanley Steamer automobile, as a summer resort for wealthy Eastern visitors. Stanley himself had relocated to Estes Park in 1903 seeking relief from tuberculosis, found it, and decided the Rocky Mountain air warranted a proper destination resort. The main building was among the first fully electrified hotels in the American West.