Haunted houses pop up throughout Milwaukee in October, frightening guests for Halloween before closing at the season’s end.
But at the Pfister Hotel, scary stories persist year-round. Spooky sounds and objects moving overnight have led many patrons, including professional athletes and entertainers, to allege a ghost living within its walls.
Guido and Charles Pfister, a father-and-son duo, opened the downtown hotel in 1893, calling it “The Grand Hotel of the West.” Despite undergoing renovations in the 1960s, including the addition of a 23-story tower, some claim that Charles Pfister himself continues to roam the hotel he once owned.
While the legends continue, Noah Leigh, founder and lead investigator of Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee — a team that has previously explored Marquette University’s haunted history — still awaits the opportunity to do an in-depth hunt in the hotel.
“What we’ve been told is that they service some high clientele,” Leigh said. “So, because of that, they don’t want to provide an air of legitimacy to the claims by allowing a group to come in and conduct an actual investigation.”
That clientele includes baseball teams visiting to play the Milwaukee Brewers each summer, and during those trips, several players have reported being spooked in their hotel rooms.
Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper told ESPN The Magazine in 2013 that during a previous stay, his clothes were thrown to the floor and a table moved across the room overnight.
“I was so flustered,” Harper said. “I honestly thought there might be someone in my room.”
Thinking it may have been a teammate pranking him, Harper checked the door, only to find that it was still locked.
In 2018, St. Louis Cardinals teammates Carlos Martinez and Marcell Ozuna took to Instagram to share ghost stories from their stay at the Pfister.
However, Leigh is skeptical of the claims, noting that baseball players can be expert jokesters.
“It’s very easy when you know where everyone’s staying for people to play jokes and pranks,” Leigh said. “So then that person ended up believing that something paranormal was happening.”
Jokes or not, Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts refuses to take any chances with the Pfister, instead opting to pay an Airbnb fare for trips to Milwaukee. Those stays include the Dodgers’ most recent appearance in the Brew City for the 2025 National League Championship Series.
Betts’ teammate Teoscar Hernández joined the avoidance during the NLCS, moving to a different hotel in Milwaukee at his wife’s request.
“I think the people who go somewhere else to sleep are legitimately scared that something’s going to happen,” Leigh said. “But I don’t know if that’s from genuine experience or just a personal superstition or belief about other stories that they’ve heard.”
However, it’s not just baseball players who have been spooked. In 2006, entertainer and singer Joey Lawrence took a trip to Milwaukee for a “Dancing with the Stars” tour, only to be allegedly stirred awake from his bed in the Pfister by flashing lights and sounds from his daughter’s toys.
Those stories — in their spookiness and surprise — have held PIM’s attention, despite being barred from a full investigation.
Leigh said in the past, two PIM investigators spent a night at the Pfister to conduct a small-scale search within the walls of their room. After hunting with video cameras, audio recorders and temperature and barometric pressure logs, the team failed to uncover any activity.
But with other hotel guests adding noise to the soundscape, Leigh suggested, the findings couldn’t entirely rule out the paranormal.
“I would love to have them be doing some sort of big renovation or something [where the hotel is] shut down and then they would let us go,” Leigh said. “That would be the perfect opportunity, but it’s probably not going to happen.”
If given the chance, Leigh said a full investigation of the hotel would focus on the original parts of the building with a close look at history. In addition to using the equipment from the previous search, the mission would explore past activity and call out to a potentially roaming ghost.
In what Leigh called “debunking sessions,” previous photo or video scenes would be recreated in the hotel to search for alternative explanations for past claims. The team would also set up “trigger banks,” enticing a ghost to interact with period-appropriate items and personal effects.
Among potential triggers would be items belonging to Charles Pfister himself, or general “vices,” such as alcohol or dice.
Leigh said that PIM is often able to find a rational explanation for paranormal concerns. But without an investigation, the legend of the Pfister hotel ghost will remain a mystery.
“We could put these claims to rest,” Leigh said. “Just give us an opportunity.”
The Pfister Hotel declined to comment on this story.
This story was written by Lance Schulteis. He can be reached at [email protected].
