HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
A cluster of 1800s adobe homes turned 1936 hotel — once the home and office of Doc Martin, Taos's first physician, who examined the remains in the unsolved 1929 Manby case
125 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Taos, NM 87571
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Standard hotel room rates; the Adobe Bar and Doc Martin's restaurant are open to non-guests. Reserve rooms through the inn's own site.
Access
Limited Access
Historic adobe complex of joined 19th-century houses with varied floor levels, steps, and low passages; central downtown location
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1936 · Home and office of Dr. T. Paul Martin, Taos's first resident physician · Opened as Hotel Martin on June 7, 1936 by Helen Martin · Site of the 1915 meeting that organized the Taos Society of Artists · Lobby built around the old town well; tied to the unsolved 1929 Arthur Manby case
The buildings that make up the Historic Taos Inn began as separate adobe homes around a small plaza in central Taos in the 1800s. One of them belonged to Dr. Thomas Paul Martin, who came to Taos in the 1890s and became its first resident physician. He and his wife Helen lived and worked there for decades, and one of the houses also hosted the 1915 meeting that organized the Taos Society of Artists.
After Doc Martin's death in the 1930s, Helen Martin combined the houses around the courtyard and old town well and opened them to travelers. Hotel Martin opened on June 7, 1936. Over the following decades it became the Historic Taos Inn, its lobby — the Adobe Bar — known locally as the living room of Taos, and Doc Martin's restaurant established in the doctor's former offices.
Doc Martin's name also attaches to one of Taos's enduring mysteries. In July 1929, the body of Arthur Rochford Manby, a British-born landholder with a long list of local enemies, was found dead and decapitated in his Taos hacienda. As the town physician, Doc Martin was among those called to examine the remains. The cause and circumstances of Manby's death were never resolved, and the case has been argued over ever since.
The inn remains a working hotel, bar, and restaurant in the National Register district at the heart of Taos, and it leans into its long history in its own storytelling.
Sources
The Historic Taos Inn turns up on every Taos haunted-history list, and the stories cluster in a few specific spots. The one staff repeat most involves a man in a large brown hat and a faded leather coat seen in and around Doc Martin's restaurant after hours. A night cleaner is among those who have described him; pots, pans, and cans are said to come off the shelves once the kitchen is closed. Some accounts connect the figure to Arthur Manby, whose unsolved 1929 death is woven into the inn's lore.
Guest rooms have their own reports. A tall woman is described appearing in the doorway of Room 106 before vanishing toward a mirror, and a male figure is said to linger near the fireplace in Room 109. The inn's lobby — the old town well at its center — and the Adobe Bar are where most visitors first hear these stories, often around Halloween, when the inn hosts events that lean into the reputation.
None of this rises above anecdote: night-shift sightings, repeated room stories, the usual furniture of a much-storied old building. What gives the lore its grip is the documented history under it — a real first physician, a real 1936 conversion, and a real unsolved death the doctor was called to examine. The ghosts are the town's way of keeping that history close.
Notable Entities
An overnight in the joined adobe houses that became the Historic Taos Inn in 1936. Guests sometimes request the rooms tied to the inn's lore — Room 106 and Room 109 come up most in the ghost accounts. The lobby, built around the old town well, doubles as the Adobe Bar; Doc Martin's restaurant occupies the former physician's offices.
Doc Martin's restaurant sits in the rooms that once held the office of Dr. T. Paul Martin, Taos's first resident physician. The adjoining Adobe Bar is open to the public. Both are stops on local Taos ghost-walk itineraries for the inn's reputed after-hours activity.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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