👻 HAUNTED PLACE · EXP. Nº9475
ACTIVE
Hotel Union Square
Hotel Union Square, at 114 Powell Street in San Francisco, opened as the Golden West Hotel ahead of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition; the hotel's own web page gave 1913 as the year it was built, and a 2014 magazine feature places a Prohibition-era speakeasy, The Golden Bubble, in its basement.
Where is Hotel Union Square?
- Location
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Type
- Hotel / inn
- Coordinates
- 37.786, -122.408
- Last updated
LOCATION
Why is Hotel Union Square said to be haunted?
In mid-1921 Dashiell Hammett reserved a room there for his bride-to-be, Josephine Dolan, and the hotel opened a Dashiell Hammett Suite in Room 505 in 2005, redone during a 2008 retrofit. Personality Hotels bought the building in 1980 and opened it as Hotel Union Square in 1982. Its ghost story comes from a San Francisco Chronicle feature of Halloween 2004, in which the concierge relayed a young guest's account of a female ghost in Room 207 and some at the hotel linked it to Lillian Hellman. In 2007 the hotel's home page carried a graphic reading Top Haunted Spots in San Francisco.
What is the history of Hotel Union Square?
The building at 114 Powell Street opened as the Golden West Hotel, and the sources disagree about when it was built. The hotel's own web page, as archived on 27 February 2007, said it was "built in 1913 for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition". The Art and Architecture – San Francisco page on its entrance murals, posted in January 2014, says the hotel "was originally built in 1908 for the 1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition", and a 2014 feature in AKA Mom Magazine describes an earlier hotel that stood on the site before the 1906 earthquake, with "major renovations in 1913". The two tile murals in the narrow entryway are by Helen Bruton Bell and were added in 1935, according to the Art and Architecture page. The AKA Mom feature places a Prohibition-era speakeasy in the basement, The Golden Bubble, "a 10,000 square foot speakeasy that was rumored to hold over 250 people". The hotel was renamed the Golden State Hotel in the 1950s, and the 2007 page says that Personality Hotels "purchased the building in 1980 and opened it two years later as the Hotel Union Square".
The Dashiell Hammett connection goes back to mid-1921. Mike Humbert, who runs a website on Hammett's San Francisco, writes that Hammett had just arrived in the city and was working again for the Pinkerton agency when he learned that Josephine Dolan, the nurse he had met in Washington state during his recovery, was six months pregnant. He proposed, and made a reservation for her "to stay across the street at Hotel Golden West". The hotel's 2007 page told the story as a suite booked "on the night before their 1921 wedding". Work on a Dashiell Hammett Suite in Room 505 began in December 2005, and the suite was redone in 2008 during what Humbert calls "a five million dollar retrofit" of the hotel.
Timeline: the documented record of Hotel Union Square
- 1913 The Golden West Hotel at 114 Powell Street undergoes major renovations ahead of the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition, according to AKA Mom Magazine; the hotel's own 2007 web page gives 1913 as the year it was built, and the Art and Architecture page gives 1908.
- 1935 Egyptian-style mosaics by Helen Bruton Bell added in the entryway.
- 1982 Personality Hotels, which bought the building in 1980, opens it as Hotel Union Square.
- 31 October 2004 Antoinette May's SF Chronicle Halloween feature reports ghost anecdotes at Room 207; concierge Tom Steele relays a young Scottish guest's account of a female ghost in Room 207 who kept wanting to wake his grandmother.
- 2008 A five-million-dollar retrofit of the hotel includes the Dashiell Hammett Suite in Room 505, on which work had begun in December 2005.
Is there a rational explanation for Hotel Union Square?
Wikipedia's statement that the hotel is "reputedly haunted, particularly Room 207" cites a single source: Antoinette May's Halloween feature for the San Francisco Chronicle of 31 October 2004. May writes as a believer: the article opens with a ghost she says she saw herself at another San Francisco hotel, the Mansions, and she adds that twenty years of investigating alleged hauntings had convinced her that "psychically speaking, the city is loaded".
The Room 207 story reached her second-hand: the concierge, Tom Steele, told her that "a young Scot traveling with his grandmother confided" that a female ghost had appeared to him in the room and kept wanting "to come out and wake up my grandmother". The hotelier Yvonne Lembi-Detert said that in 207 "things appear out of nowhere", adding that "the last object was a Kleenex". The link with Lillian Hellman is given as something that "some at the hotel" make. The line "on closer investigation ... no one's there", sometimes quoted as the article's own caveat, belongs to a different passage: it follows the remark that the hotel's bar was so lively before Prohibition "that present-day guests report bodies sleeping it off in the hotel hallways".
The two people May names as her sources on Room 207 worked for the hotel or ran it; the guest's account, from a young man she does not name, reached her through one of them. A 2014 feature in AKA Mom Magazine names Yvonne Lembi-Detert as chief executive and president of the Personality Hotels group, which had bought the building in 1980 according to the hotel's own 2007 web page. The hotel also used the reputation in its marketing. Its home page, as archived by the Wayback Machine on 27 February 2007, carried a graphic reading "Top Haunted Spots in San Francisco", linked to a Citysearch roundup.
Can you visit Hotel Union Square?
Hotel Union Square is at 114 Powell Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. The hotel is open to the public and welcomes guests. The Dashiell Hammett Suite (Room 505) is a literary-themed room available for standard room rates. Standard hotel amenities include a fitness center, business center, and on-site dining. Public transportation: Muni lines 1, 6, 7, 8, and N/J/P/Q/R/S streetcars stop near Union Square. Parking: Several commercial lots are within two blocks; the hotel does not validate parking. The hotel is ADA-accessible. Reservations: 415-329-5003 or hotelunionsquare.com.
Sources consulted
- Wikipedia contributors, «Hotel Union Square» — Wikipedia, 2026 web
- Antoinette May, «Is there a spirit here tonight?» — San Francisco Chronicle, 2004 newspaper archive
- Mike Humbert, «The Dashiell Hammett Suite at Hotel Union Square» — The Dashiell Hammett website, 2009 web
- Art and Architecture - San Francisco, «Helen Bruton's Tile Murals at the Golden West Hotel» — Art and Architecture - San Francisco, 2014 web
- Lincoln McElwee, «Hotel Union Square: San Francisco's First Boutique Hotel at the Heart of it All» — AKA Mom Magazine, 2014 web
- Hotel Union Square (Personality Hotels), «Dashiell Hammett's Favorite San Francisco Hotel — the hotel's own history page: built in 1913 for the 1915 exposition, renamed Golden State Hotel in the 1950s, bought by Personality Hotels in 1980 and opened two years later as Hotel Union Square; Hammett booked a suite for Josephine Dolan before their 1921 wedding (archived 27 February 2007)» — hotelunionsquare.com, archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, 2007 web
- Hotel Union Square (Personality Hotels), «Hotel Union Square home page — carries a 'Top Haunted Spots in San Francisco' graphic linked to a Citysearch roundup (archived 27 February 2007)» — hotelunionsquare.com, archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, 2007 web
Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-08-22 · How we verify our content
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