HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
+ 4 further entries on record
1923 Uptown Dallas high-rise hotel on the National Register, long associated with 'Margaret,' said to be a mistress of an early owner who fell to her death in the building.
2927 Maple Avenue, Dallas, TX 75201
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Standard room rates typically $200-350 per night. Lobby and bar accessible to non-guests.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Restored historic high-rise with elevators and accessible public spaces
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1923 · National Register of Historic Places · Dallas's second-oldest hotel · First penthouse suite in Dallas (Colonel Harry Stewart, 1930s) · 1923 Uptown High-Rise Architecture
The Stoneleigh Court Hotel, designed by architect Frank J. Woerner, opened on October 18, 1923 along Maple Avenue in what is now Dallas's Uptown district. It rose as one of the tallest residential-style hotels in the city and is today recognized as Dallas's second-oldest hotel still in operation. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its 1920s-era high-rise architecture and intact public spaces.
In the 1930s the hotel passed to Colonel Harry Stewart, the Texas distributor for Ford Motor tractors and farm equipment and a frequent guest who reportedly became so enamored of the property that he purchased it outright (1934). Stewart converted the top floor into a private penthouse — by hotel tradition the first penthouse residence in Dallas — and lived at the property.
The Stoneleigh operated under various owners through the twentieth century before being acquired and rebranded as Le Méridien Dallas, The Stoneleigh, under Marriott's Le Méridien banner. The hotel celebrated its centennial in 2023, an anniversary that CBS Texas covered with a feature explicitly framed around the hotel's longstanding ghost lore.
The property's history has been documented by WFAA, CBS Texas, and the Dallas-area real estate publication CandysDirt; all three sources are consistent on the basic ownership and architectural facts.
Sources
The Stoneleigh's signature haunting figure is 'Margaret.' According to hotel tradition retold in WFAA, CBS Texas, and CandysDirt, Margaret is said to have been a 1930s mistress of Colonel Harry Stewart who used the hotel's prohibition-era passageways to reach his penthouse. The affair is said to have ended in tragedy when Margaret fell, jumped, or was pushed from the top floor and died.
Staff and guests have reported seeing a woman in a 1930s silk dress on the upper floors and the former penthouse level. She is credited in hotel lore with flickering lights, shattering bar glasses 'when she's displeased,' turning on bathroom faucets, and sending the elevator running floor-to-floor and up to the penthouse on its own. According to WFAA, activity is said to spike during thunderstorms.
A second figure described as 'a man in a black suit,' interpreted by staff as Colonel Stewart himself, has been reported in guest rooms on the upper floors. CBS Texas's 2023 centennial feature frames these accounts as part of the hotel's anniversary storytelling, with the hotel's staff openly discussing the lore in TV interviews.
A persistent reportable feature, repeated across all three sources, is unexplained singing heard on the 13th level, which the hotel describes as a service level with no guest rooms.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Stay overnight at The Stoneleigh, Autograph Collection. Activity reports concentrate on the upper floors and the former 11th-floor penthouse level associated with Colonel Harry Stewart and 'Margaret.'
Drink or dine in the hotel's restored 1920s lobby and bar — the most-cited public space for shattering-glass and lights-flickering accounts.
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