HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
1904 Mediterranean Revival bed-and-breakfast on Cordova Street — a former Carcaba family cigar-making home that spent more than two decades as a working St. Augustine funeral home.
20 Cordova St, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Mid-tier bed-and-breakfast room rates with full breakfast.
Access
Limited Access
Three-story historic structure; not all rooms are accessible by elevator.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1904 · Mediterranean Revival architecture · Carcaba family cigar-making history · Former funeral home (1940s-1960s) · St. Augustine historic district
Casa de Sueños was built in 1904 as a single-family home at 20 Cordova Street, one block west of the Plaza de la Constitución in St. Augustine's historic district. The home was occupied by the Carcaba family, who became known locally for their cigar-making business; as the business grew, the family remodeled the home into its current Mediterranean Revival style.
In the 1940s the property passed to William McGrath, a St. Augustine undertaker, who converted the building into a funeral home. The funeral home operated successfully until the 1960s, with the Garcia family later taking over the business. Per the inn's own historical narrative and corroborating ghost-tour sources, the funeral home was one of the most successful in St. Augustine, with bodies routinely laid out in coffins in the building's parlor rooms over a period of roughly two decades.
After the funeral home closed, the building hosted various commercial offices through the later 20th century. It was purchased in the late 1990s by Kathleen Hurley, who converted the structure into a bed-and-breakfast. Per the property's own materials, the current ownership also operates the historic St. Francis Inn, linking the property to one of St. Augustine's longer-running haunted-inn networks.
The building is a contributing structure in the Cordova Street historic streetscape.
Sources
Per St. Augustine Ghost Tours, Ghost City Tours, and FrightFind, the most-cited paranormal account at Casa de Sueños concerns digital alarm clocks and electronic devices stopping at 3:33 AM. The number is repeated across multiple guest reports across multiple rooms, with sufficient regularity that it appears in the inn's own promotional material. Local lore attributes the 3:33 phenomenon to a former resident referred to in tour-operator accounts as Esperanza; primary archival documentation of a specific named person matching this story has not been located by us.
A second cluster of reports concerns guest photographs that allegedly show shadowy figures in colonial or early-20th-century dress in otherwise empty rooms. Photography-based evidence is among the most contested categories in paranormal investigation and we frame these reports as anecdotal rather than evidentiary.
The property's mid-20th-century funeral-home period is the most editorially salient anchor: more than two decades of bodies prepared and laid out in the building, with named local families involved in the undertaking work. The ghost-tour literature here tends to treat the funeral-home period factually — as a building-use history — rather than sensationalizing it. We follow that framing and decline to render the funeral home as a source of horror.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Book an overnight stay in the 1904 Mediterranean Revival home on Cordova Street. The inn's lore is tied to its mid-20th-century period as a funeral home and the resident reportedly named Esperanza.
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