1935 Georgian-style resort hotel inside Saratoga Spa State Park, the only hotel within the 2,000-acre park and named for the entrepreneur who founded Saratoga Springs in the early 1800s.
24 Gideon Putnam Road, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Resort hotel rates vary by room category and season; spa packages available with adjacent Roosevelt Baths.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Resort grounds and paved paths through Saratoga Spa State Park; elevators within the hotel.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1935 · National Historic Landmark · Historic Hotels of America · Saratoga Spa State Park New Deal Development · Named for Founder of Saratoga Springs
The Gideon Putnam Hotel opened in 1935 as the centerpiece of the New York State Reservation at Saratoga Springs — now Saratoga Spa State Park — a 2,000-acre state park created during the New Deal era to develop the city's mineral-spring resources as a publicly accessible health resort. The hotel is the only lodging inside the park and is positioned adjacent to the Roosevelt Baths and Spa, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and the National Museum of Dance.
The hotel is named for Gideon Putnam (1763-1812), the founder of Saratoga Springs as a planned village. Putnam settled at the springs in spring 1789 and beginning around 1802-1805 transformed what had been a wilderness camping ground into a village with broad streets, public access to the mineral springs, and the area's first hotel — Putnam's Tavern and Boarding House, built in 1803, later expanded into Union Hall and renamed the Grand Union in 1869.
Observing the success of his first hotel, Putnam began construction in 1811 on a second, larger hotel: Congress Hall. While overseeing the construction work he fell from scaffolding and broke several ribs. The injury contracted into a serious lung infection and he died on December 1, 1812, at the age of 49, from pneumonia complications. Putnam was buried in Saratoga Springs and is remembered as the founder of the city in its modern form.
The Georgian Revival hotel that now bears his name was designed in the colonial-revival manner popular in the 1930s. It is a National Historic Landmark hotel in Saratoga Spa State Park and is listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's guide to Historic Hotels of America. The 124-room hotel is operated under Delaware North's hospitality portfolio and has undergone several restorations, most recently in the 2020s.
Sources
The Gideon Putnam Hotel's haunted reputation is a single-figure narrative tied to its namesake. According to the Haunted History Trail of New York State, Wandercuse, The Travel, and InstaAtlas, guests have reported sightings of Gideon Putnam himself roaming the halls of the hotel, often associated with the upper floors. The lore links his continued presence to the manner of his death — overseeing construction at his Congress Hall hotel, falling from scaffolding, and dying weeks later of pneumonia at age 49 — and to the affinity of his name and legacy with the modern hotel that opened on the state-park grounds in 1935.
Reports are not heavily documented in primary paranormal literature, and the hotel itself does not market the paranormal reputation. There are no consistent reports of phenomena beyond the named-figure sightings — no recurring EVPs, photographic anomalies, or object manipulation accounts in the available record.
The haunted reputation here is best treated as a gentle local-historical-figure narrative consistent with the hotel's setting in a 2,000-acre state park named for the man who founded Saratoga Springs as a city. Multi-source confirmation of the Putnam-ghost narrative now appears across at least four independent regional outlets.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Stay in the 124-room Georgian Revival resort, the only hotel inside the 2,000-acre Saratoga Spa State Park. The hotel is a National Historic Landmark and a member of Historic Hotels of America.
Walk the surrounding 2,000-acre state park with its mineral springs, the Roosevelt Baths and Spa, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and the National Museum of Dance.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Saratoga Springs, NY
The Batcheller Mansion was built in 1873 at a cost of $100,000 as the home of George Sherman Batcheller, a Civil War officer, New York State Assemblyman, judge, U.S. diplomat to Egypt, and President of the Universal Postal Congress. The High Victorian Gothic design featured eleven bedrooms, steam-vapor furnaces, and gas illumination throughout. The mansion was sold out of the Batcheller family in 1916 and now operates as a boutique bed-and-breakfast.
College Corner, OH
Hueston Woods State Park in Preble County, Ohio takes its name from Matthew Hueston, who received the land as compensation for military service under General Anthony Wayne in the 1790s. The Hueston family preserved more than 200 acres of old-growth forest, which the state acquired in 1947. The park's 625-acre Acton Lake was impounded in 1957 following completion of a dam across Four Mile Creek. The site has Adena Indian ceremonial mounds dating to 500 B.C.
Perry Park, KY
Perry Park sits on land originally hunted by Iroquois, Shawnee, Cherokee, and Miami peoples, settled in the early 1800s by Revolutionary War veteran Benjamin Perry and his family. Glenwood Hall, the manor house built between 1830 and 1850, became the clubhouse of Glenwood Hall Golf and Country Club in 1969 and remains in use today as a bed and breakfast and dining hall.