Eighteenth-Century Resort in the Green Mountains
3567 Main St, Manchester Village, VT 05254
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$$
Standard nightly rates typically begin in the mid-$200s and rise seasonally; resort packages and spa add-ons available.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved village streets and resort grounds; the property is hilly with multiple historic buildings.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1769 · Eighteenth-Century Tavern Origins · Lincoln Family History · Vermont Resort Heritage
The Equinox traces its origins to a 1769 tavern operated by Marsh and Pettibone in what was then a young Manchester. The hotel grew through successive expansions over the following two centuries, eventually anchoring Manchester Village as a destination for politicians, writers, and summer visitors drawn by the Green Mountains and the Battenkill valley.
The property's most-cited historical association is with the Lincoln family. Mary Todd Lincoln visited the hotel with her sons Robert and Tad in 1863 and again in 1864, the Lincolns' final summer before President Lincoln's assassination. Robert Todd Lincoln returned to the area for the rest of his life and built Hildene, his Manchester estate, in 1905. The Lincoln connection remains central to the resort's interpretive presentation today.
The property has been substantially renovated in modern eras while preserving its historic envelope. The Equinox now operates as a four-season golf and spa resort with multiple restaurants, conference facilities, and a destination spa, while the Hildene historic site sits a short distance away and is open separately as a museum.
Sources
The Equinox's documented Lincoln-era guest history anchors most of the folklore associated with the hotel. Staff working the upper floors have described brief glimpses of a woman in nineteenth-century dress accompanied by a child, an account that hotel lore attributes to Mary Todd Lincoln and one of her sons. Witnesses describe the figures appearing at the edge of vision and dissipating quickly.
A second figure associated with the building is George Orvis, son of Franklin Orvis, who owned and managed the property in the late 1800s. Reports tied to George tend to cluster in the older wings of the hotel.
Guests across multiple accounts describe the more general phenomena common to long-operating historic hotels: cold spots in specific rooms, brief whispers in empty corridors, the sense of presence in the older sections of the building, and movement glimpsed peripherally. Local writers and travel journalists have produced a steady stream of features on the Equinox's reputation, though the resort itself does not currently market organized paranormal programming.
The Shadowlands index referenced a specific 'Room 346' associated with belongings being stacked. Independent corroboration of that specific room number was not located in published sources; the more consistently sourced accounts focus on the third floor generally rather than a single numbered room.
Notable Entities
The Equinox is a four-season historic resort whose oldest sections date to 1769. Mary Todd Lincoln stayed here with her sons during the Civil War era, and members of the Lincoln family have continued to be associated with the property; the resort has long figured in Vermont folklore as one of the state's most reportedly active haunted hotels.
On-site restaurants and bars within the historic resort. The hotel's public spaces date to its eighteenth-century origins and provide context for the property's documented Lincoln-era guest history.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Norwich, VT
The Norwich Inn dates to 1797, when Dartmouth graduate Colonel Jasper Murdock completed what was reputed to be the finest mansion in Vermont. Across more than 220 years, the inn has hosted President James Monroe, survived a December 1889 fire, and operated under the Walker family during Prohibition. It continues today as a 40-room property in the Upper Valley.
Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
El Tovar Hotel opened in 1905 on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, built from local limestone and Oregon pine at a cost of nearly $250,000 for the Fred Harvey Company in conjunction with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Designed by Charles Whittlesey, it opened four years after Fred Harvey's death and predated the Grand Canyon's designation as a National Park by four years. Early guests included Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, George Bernard Shaw, and Zane Grey.
Ouray, CO
The Beaumont Hotel opened in Ouray, Colorado on July 25, 1887, built during the silver boom that transformed the San Juan Mountains. The Beaumont hosted Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and a roster of mining-era guests, then sat largely closed from the 1960s until a multi-year restoration returned it to operation in 2003.