HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
1874 Italianate mansion, the cited inspiration for Disney's Haunted Mansion, now an inn
19 Packer Hill Rd, Jim Thorpe, PA 18229
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Overnight room rates vary by night and season; murder-mystery weekend packages priced separately. See website for current rates.
Access
Limited Access
Hillside Victorian mansion with stairs throughout and a sloped approach
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1874 · Packer Family / Lehigh Valley Railroad · Victorian Architecture · National Register of Historic Places (1974) · Cited Disney Haunted Mansion inspiration
The mansion stands on Packer Hill in Jim Thorpe, the Carbon County borough that was called Mauch Chunk until 1954. Asa Packer, who built the Lehigh Valley Railroad and founded Lehigh University, commissioned the house in 1874 as a wedding gift for his son Harry Eldred Packer, who had married in 1872. Philadelphia architect Addison Hutton designed it as a two-and-a-half-story Italianate dwelling of red brick with a green Vermont sandstone verandah and a bell tower.
Harry Packer did not enjoy the house for long. He died in 1884 at age 34 of Bright's disease, a kidney ailment. His widow, Mary Augusta Lockhart Packer, continued to live in the mansion and raised adopted children there until her own death in 1911. The property then passed through a series of owners and fell into disrepair over the following decades.
The mansion's modern era began in the fall of 1984, when Robert and Pat Handwerk bought the deteriorating building and restored it as a bed-and-breakfast. Their family later expanded the operation into the inn and murder-mystery business it runs today.
The house is frequently described as the design inspiration for the Haunted Mansion attraction at Walt Disney World, a claim repeated in regional travel coverage and on Wikipedia, though it is sourced to popular accounts rather than Disney documentation. The exterior, with its tower and elaborate Victorian detailing, is what supporters point to. The mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 20, 1974.
Sources
The Harry Packer Mansion's paranormal reputation is built largely on its appearance and its history as the home of a family touched by early death. The 1874 house, with its tower and dark Victorian interiors, has long attracted ghost-story attention in Jim Thorpe's historic district.
Reported experiences cluster around ordinary unsettling phenomena rather than dramatic encounters: footsteps heard in empty corridors, abrupt drops in temperature, and doors that open or close without an obvious draft. Visitors tend to describe these as impressions rather than full apparitions, and accounts vary from guest to guest.
The mansion is a regular stop on the Jim Thorpe ghost tour, where guides connect the reported activity to the Packer family, particularly to Harry Packer, who died in the house's first decade, and to his widow Mary, who lived there until 1911. These are folklore attributions rather than documented identifications.
The property leans into its reputation through its murder-mystery weekends, which use the setting's atmosphere as the backdrop for staged whodunit theater. The paranormal claims remain anecdotal and unverified by any formal investigation that has been published.
The mansion operates as an inn with Victorian-furnished guest rooms in the 1874 Packer house. Rooms occupy the main house and the adjacent carriage house.
The Harry Packer Mansion runs interactive murder-mystery weekend packages, the property's best-known offering, combining an overnight stay with a staged whodunit. The mansion is also a stop on the Jim Thorpe ghost tour.
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This Jim Thorpe tour includes Harry Packer Mansion on its route.
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