Omni Parker House, Massachusetts: History and the Ghost Stories of Boston’s Hotel

Northeast US Haunted Hotels
The tall beige stone Omni Parker House at the corner of School Street and Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts, seen from the street with the hotel's signage above the ground floor

The Omni Parker House in Boston is known for the Boston cream pie, the Parker House roll and a long list of famous guests, and also for a long list of ghost stories. Its tenth floor, an elevator that stops at the third floor and a portrait of the founder are the usual subjects. The hotel’s history is well documented. The ghost stories come mostly from the hotel’s own blog and a few books, and at least one popular rumor has been denied. This post keeps the record and the legend apart.

What the record shows

Harvey D. Parker opened the Parker House Hotel at School Street and Tremont Street on October 8, 1855, according to Wikipedia. Parker had come to Boston with little money in 1825 and had bought a downtown cafe in 1832, renaming it Parker’s Restaurant. A Boston Landmarks Commission study says the hotel business ran continuously from 1855 until March 2020, when the pandemic closed it for the first time. The study says the 1897 annex, which faces Bosworth Street, is the oldest surviving section, and that it stayed open while the current main building was built in 1927. The Landmarks study and Wikipedia both credit the kitchens with the Parker House roll and the Boston cream pie.

The hotel was a gathering place. Wikipedia says the Saturday Club, whose members included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., met there. It also says Charles Dickens lived in the hotel for five months in 1867 and 1868, and first read “A Christmas Carol” to the Saturday Club there. The hotel keeps a mirror it says Dickens used to rehearse. The Landmarks study lists the actress Charlotte Cushman among the guests. According to a 1876 newspaper report quoted by the History of Massachusetts blog, she died at the Parker House on February 18, 1876, after a long illness and a bout of pneumonia.

Harvey Parker died on May 31, 1884, at age 79 and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Wikipedia says. The hotel has been a member of Historic Hotels of America since 2006, according to the Landmarks study, and Omni operates it today. The study was prepared for the city’s Landmarks Commission, which was weighing a possible landmark designation of the property.

The legend

The best-known ghost is said to be Harvey Parker himself. The Omni Hotels blog published an Oct 2016 collection of stories that begins with a quotation from a longtime bellman in a 1992 Boston Globe interview. The bellman said he first heard about Parker’s ghost when he began work in 1941, and that the figure was said to roam the tenth floor of the annex. He described an incident around 1950, when an elderly guest said she saw a heavy-set older man with a black mustache outside Room 1078 who turned toward her and faded away. Security went up and found nothing.

The blog adds other accounts. A guest heard friendly whispering outside her door at the same time on two mornings and found no one there. Security answered noise complaints about Room 1040 and found it empty. A security officer saw a man’s shadow on a wall in the Bosworth section, wearing a stovepipe hat, and no one was there when he stepped aside. Airline crew in a tenth-floor room heard a rocking chair, although the hotel has none, and bellmen have seen bright orbs of light in the corridor. In Room 1012, the blog says, a daughter woke to a smiling gentleman in clothing of the late 1800s at the end of the bed, and one of the pair later recognized him in Harvey Parker’s portrait in the dining room.

On the third floor, the blog says, an elevator is called with no one waiting and no button pushed. A 2017 History of Massachusetts blog post says the front desk told a reporter in 2010 that the elevator has done this since Charlotte Cushman died there. The History of Massachusetts post also reports a mirror said to behave oddly, based on a tour guide’s account in a 2016 book, and a hotel manager who recalled a gruff voice from a mezzanine storage closet around 2010. The Omni blog mentions a long-time resident of Room 303 who liked whiskey and cigars, and says guests sometimes smell both after the room is cleaned.

What the record does not support

The ghost stories are anecdotes, and most come secondhand. The hotel’s own blog collects them as Halloween material. The bellman’s 1992 interview is a recollection about an event around 1950 after which, the blog says, security found nothing, and the blog adds that such sightings had not been reported for two decades. The History of Massachusetts blog notes that the bearded man in colonial clothing seen on the upper floors does not fit Harvey Parker, who lived in the nineteenth century and would not have worn colonial clothing, and the Omni blog describes the 1012 visitor as dressed in the late 1800s, so the sources do not agree. The elevator story is a retelling of what a desk employee said, not a documented event.

One widely repeated rumor has been denied. Wikipedia says that many ghost books and tours claim Stephen King’s 1999 story “1408” was based on a haunting in Room 303, and that King’s personal assistant says that claim is false. The History of Massachusetts blog quotes the same denial and says King does not stay at the Parker House in Boston. A more specific story about a death in a guest room in the late 1940s also circulates, and no record of it was found in the sources reviewed, so it is not repeated here.

The one documented death, Cushman’s, was of illness in 1876. Nothing in the sources links her to the elevator beyond the desk employee’s remark.

Visiting

The Omni Parker House stands at 60 School Street in Boston, according to the Landmarks study, and the History of Massachusetts blog places it across the street from King’s Chapel and its burying ground. It is a working hotel with restaurants, and the Landmarks study names Parker’s Restaurant and The Last Hurrah. Rates, tours and room requests change, so confirm with the hotel.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Omni Parker House haunted?

It is said to be. The hotel’s own blog collects stories about Harvey Parker’s ghost on the tenth floor and an elevator on the third. They are anecdotes with no documentation.

Who haunts the Omni Parker House?

Retellings name the founder Harvey Parker, the actress Charlotte Cushman for the elevator, and Charles Dickens for a mirror. The sources do not corroborate any of these.

Did Stephen King base “1408” on the Parker House?

Wikipedia says a claim to that effect is false, according to King’s personal assistant.

When did the Omni Parker House open?

Wikipedia gives October 8, 1855. The Landmarks study treats 1855 as the start of continuous operation, and the current main building dates to 1927.

More haunted hotels

Other haunted New England inns on this site include Colonial Inn, Concord, MA and The Red Brook Inn, Old Mystic, CT.

Sources

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Top image: Omni Parker House (54957839082), ajay_suresh, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.jpg)