Phantoms at the Pfister Hotel

Early Postcard View Pfister Hotel

Today’s blog takes us all the way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for an overnight stay at one of the most interesting haunted hotels in the midwest. What makes the phantoms of the Pfister Hotel, located just blocks away from Lake Michigan at 424 E. Wisconsin Avenue, stand out is their apparent love of the local Major League Baseball team. Yes, the ghosts at the Pfister seem to do everything in their power to give the Brewers as much of a home team advantage as possible. But, more on that in a minute…

The Pfister Hotel is a stunning, 307 room luxury hotel built in 1893 by Charles Pfister. Charles Pfister, known affectionately as “Charlie” was born in Milwaukee on June 17, 1859. At the age of 11, he was adopted by Guido Pfister, a German immigrant. Guido, who originally operated a shoe shop, teamed up with his cousin Frederick Vogel who operated a tannery, to establish a hugely successful leather business. A successful business meant money—lots and lots of money—and therefore, Guido diversified his business interests. One dream of Guido’s was to build an opulent hotel that would become a showplace of wealth and prestige in the Milwaukee area. 

Unfortunately, Guido passed away on February 2, 1889. With work on the hotel just beginning, Charles, who inherited an estimated $1 million and held stock in the Milwaukee Hotel Company, decided to finish the hotel in remembrance of his father. The Hotel Pfister was completed and opened for business in May of 1893, at an estimated cost of $1 million. Charles Koch was hired as the architect, and the hotel featured many state-of-the-art and luxury amenities.

Guido Pfister Source: Find-a-Grave user, Anthony S.

Every US president since William McKinley stayed at the hotel at one point or another, as well as a host of celebrities, many who have had their own paranormal experiences staying there. Even Elvis Presley was a guest in 1977, a few months before his untimely death. For many years, Charles, who never married and never had children of his own, lived in the hotel to oversee its daily operations. For the first year it was opened, the hotel actually LOST money, sometimes hundreds of dollars a day. But, when the 1894 state Republican Convention was held there, all rooms were filled to capacity, and the hotel became a base of political operations for Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole. 

In 1927, Charles suffered a paralytic stroke and sold the hotel to long-time employee, Ray Smith. Charles had acted as a mentor to Smith, so he was the perfect candidate to take over the hotel. But, as times changed and the country went through the turmoil of a Great Depression and a second World War, the hotel suffered a period of decline, lasting through the 1950s and 1960s. Ben Mercer stepped in to purchase the hotel and completed extensive renovations to return the Hotel Pfister to its former splendor. He even added on the 23-guest room tower at this time. 

Charles Pfister Source: Wisconsin Historical Society Collections

It is said that renovations are often the catalyst for paranormal activity, but it wouldn’t be until the 2010′s that the hotel would really hit the paranormal mainstream as a haunted location. That’s because numerous stories of ghostly encounters began circulating from players of visiting baseball teams! When an out-of-town team came to play the Milwaukee Brewers, they were generally put up at the Pfister. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a running tab of players’ experiences (READ ARTICLE HERE), but just a few examples are:

2018: Carlos Martinez, pitcher for the Cardinals hopped on Instagram in the middle of the night to alert his fans that he had been touched by the Pfister ghost. He played really bad the next day and blamed the performance on the ghost. 

2001: Adrian Belte of the LA Dodgers told Sports Illustrated in an interview that he had heard knocking on his door in the middle of the night, but no one was there. He watched as both the AC and the TV switched themselves on. But it was the knocking coming from his headboard that led him to sleep with his bat, in fear. He said out of a total of three nights stay at the hotel, he probably only slept for about 2 hours. 

Carlos Gomez of the Minnesota Twins heard disembodied voices and experienced his iPod turning itself on. Michael Young of the Rangers heard stomping inside his room. To this day, Mookie Betts of the Dodgers won’t stay at the Pfister—he books his own lodging while in town. And it’s not just baseball players experiencing things, although they certainly seem to be the number one targets. When actor Joey Lawrence stayed in 2006, he was awakened by his daughter’s toys going off on their own. Megan Thee Stallion and her entourage even did a little ghost hunting while staying there for Summerfest one year. 

There’s no question that there’s some spooky stuff going on here, but who actually haunts the Hotel Pfister? Multiple theories abound. Some believe it’s Guido, sticking around to experience the hotel that he dreamed of, but never got to experience in life. Others believe that Charles is the obvious culprit. He built the hotel, lived in the hotel, and used the hotel as the center of his business and social life. Both men may have a vested interested in seeing their local baseball team dominate…or at least, may have a little fun messing with visiting teams the night before the big game. 

Another theory is that the land itself was haunted, way before the hotel was built. In a Milwaukee Daily Sentinel newspaper article from May 5, 1893, a man named Charles “Milwaukee” Sivyer was interviewed. Sivyer is recognized as being the first white male born in Milwaukee and was often sought out to give a history of the area in its early days. He remembered living in a log cabin where the Hotel Pfister now stands and says the area around it was once a burial ground. And, as anyone who has seen the movie Poltergeist knows, the one thing you don’t want to do is build atop a burial ground! 

Sources and Further Reading:

Pfister Hotel Website

Charles Pfister Wikipedia

The Legend of the Pfister Hotel Ghost, by Becky Mortensen for WUWM Radio. 31 October 2022

Dodgers’ Mookie Betts, Other MLB Players Say They’ve Been Haunted by Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel, by JR Radcliffe. 13 August 2024 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Source: http://theresashauntedhistoryofthetri-state.blogspot.com/2025/10/phantoms-at-pfister-hotel.html