HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
A 1911 mountaintop hotel at 9,000 feet where staff still field questions about Rebecca, the chambermaid who supposedly never checked out
601 Corona Pl, Cloudcroft, NM 88317
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Standard hotel room rates; the 1899 Restaurant, lobby, and golf course are open to non-guests. Book directly through the resort's own site.
Access
Limited Access
Historic multi-floor Victorian-era lodge with stairs; surrounding golf course and forest grounds at 9,000 feet elevation
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1899 · 1899 railway-era mountain resort at 9,000 feet elevation · Rebuilt in 1911 after the original building burned in 1909 · Conrad Hilton managed the property in the 1930s · Highest-elevation golf course in North America
The Lodge traces its start to 1899, when the Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway built a resort at the top of its logging line into the Sacramento Mountains. The railway had been climbing roughly 5,000 feet from the desert floor to haul timber; a resort at the summit gave it a second business hauling El Paso and Tularosa Basin residents up to cooler air. A log-built main lodge went up in 1901, and by 1908, under the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad System, guests could golf, bowl, dance, and take weekend rail excursions for $3.
On June 13, 1909, a defective kitchen flue started a fire that destroyed the building. All guests got out safely, but the town worried the resort would not return. A group of local doctors, led by Dr. H.E. Stevenson, argued the mountain air's health benefits to the railroad, and the community bought shares to help fund reconstruction. The Lodge reopened in 1911 on the same site, largely as it still appears today.
The hotel drew a steady stream of well-known guests through the twentieth century — resort materials and local histories name Pancho Villa, Judy Garland, Clark Gable, and Gilbert Roland among them, and hotelier Conrad Hilton managed the property in the 1930s, early in his career. Ownership changed hands several times afterward; New Mexico Adventures LLC took over in March 2015.
The Lodge closed during the pandemic and reopened July 1, 2021, after owners Lanna and Joe Duncan gutted two wings of the 59-room hotel and restored Arts and Crafts details that earlier renovations had covered. The property, now part of the 223 Collection hotel group, still runs its nine-hole golf course — built at the same elevation and marketed as the highest in North America — along with a restaurant renamed 1899 for the resort's founding year.
Sources
The version told most often at the front desk has Rebecca as a chambermaid, described as red-haired and striking, working at the Lodge in the 1930s. In the standard telling, her lumberjack boyfriend found her with another man — sometimes identified as a lodge manager — and killed her, allegedly burying her in the basement. Other tellings put a railroad executive in the role of her lover, or have the boyfriend dragging her into the woods instead. None of the versions agree on where or how the story actually ends, which is itself part of what paranormal writers who've covered the property point to as evidence it may be pure folklore.
Reported phenomena cluster around Room 101, the Governor's Suite, where guests and switchboard operators have described calls coming from the room with no one on the line, and around the restaurant and lobby, where staff report doors opening on their own, flickering lights, faucets and toilets running unprompted, and objects like ashtrays and wine glasses moving or breaking. A researcher who wrote about the case found that the Otero County sheriff's office checked its missing-persons records for the 1930s and found no one matching Rebecca's name — for what that's worth against a story that was likely never meant to be checked.
The hotel leans into the story anyway: portraits of Rebecca hang around the property, and the resort's own marketing invites guests to go looking for her. A 2013 book, written by a former Lodge employee, collects the various tellings under her name.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
An overnight stay in the 59-room lodge rebuilt in 1911 after fire destroyed the original 1899 building. Room 101, the Governor's Suite, is the room most requested by guests chasing the resort's best-known ghost story.
The lodge's restaurant, renamed 1899 for the resort's founding year, sits in the rooms where staff say Rebecca is still occasionally seen or heard. Open to non-guests.
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