1840 Inn with a Returning Bloodstain Legend
146 Main Street, Stanardsville, VA 22973
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Room rates start around $139/night per third-party listings; on-site American restaurant.
Access
Limited Access
Historic 1840 inn with stairs to upper floors.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1840 · Antebellum Inn · Civil War-Era Hospital · Battle of Stanardsville
The Lafayette Inn opened on Main Street in Stanardsville, the seat of Greene County, in 1840. The town sits along the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia, on the road that connects Charlottesville to Skyline Drive.
The Civil War touched Stanardsville directly. In late February 1864 a Union cavalry raid under General George Custer passed through the town in a feint meant to draw Confederate attention away from the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid on Richmond. The skirmish that followed is remembered locally as the Battle of Stanardsville. Period accounts and the inn's own folklore suggest the building served as a hospital during this period.
The property continues to operate as a bed-and-breakfast and American restaurant. The inn is listed on Virginia tourism, OpenTable, and Historic Hotels-aligned aggregators, and the foyer remains the focal point of guest interest in its haunted reputation.
Sources
The signature account at the Lafayette Inn concerns a single mark on the floor of the foyer. According to local tradition, a Confederate soldier convalescing in the building during the 1864 Battle of Stanardsville received word that his wife had been unfaithful with a Union officer. He shot himself on the spot. Witnesses to the legend report that the bloodstain, scrubbed away each evening, returns by morning.
A companion account describes the same soldier walking the inn's halls at night with a pistol, apparently still searching for the man who wronged him. Paranormal investigators visiting the property have reported additional figures, including a presence identified by one group as a soldier who died in the building when it served as a hospital, and a separate female presence guests have referred to as Connie. Independent corroboration for these named figures is thin, and they are best treated as folklore layered onto the original bloodstain story.
Notable Entities
Book a room in the historic Stanardsville inn that has hosted travelers since 1840. The foyer is the focus of the inn's most persistent ghost story, where a bloodstain is said to reappear after each cleaning.
Reserve a table in the inn's American restaurant near the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountains. The dining rooms occupy the original 1840 building tied to the Battle of Stanardsville folklore.
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