Historic Jordan Springs: Spa, Seminary, Rehab, Ballroom

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated October 20, 2026 · How we verify

Four miles northeast of Winchester, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a sulphur spring made a small community famous long before anyone thought to call it haunted. Historic Jordan Springs is the surviving monument to that business: a 48,000-square-foot brick hotel from 1893 that has since been a Catholic monastery, a seminary, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, and now a wedding and conference venue. Four completely different sets of people have lived under that roof, and the ghost stories told about the building tend to borrow from all of them.

Quick Facts on Jordan Springs

• Where: Jordan Springs, an unincorporated community in Frederick County, Virginia, about four miles from Winchester, on Jordan Springs Road (VA 664) along Lick Run, north of Devils Backbone. Mail goes to Stephenson.
• Resort founded: 1800, as Jordan White Sulphur Springs
• Current building: the Jordan Springs Hotel, built 1893, the third hotel the Jordan family raised on the site
• Notable death: David Holmes, first elected governor of Mississippi, died here in 1832
• Religious era: bought in 1953 by the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity
• Rehabilitation era: leased to Shalom et Benedictus, operating until 1999
• Now: the Historic Jordan Springs Event & Cultural Centre, a wedding, event and conference venue
• Reported activity: figures in period dress, footsteps, disembodied voices, knocking

Sulphur Water and the Jordan Family’s Three Hotels

The springs were known for centuries to local Native Americans before any resort existed, and the community takes its name from the plantation and resort the Jordan family built around that water. In 1800 they established Jordan White Sulphur Springs on the strength of a belief that ran through nineteenth-century America: that mineral water taken at the source could cure what doctors could not. Generations of Jordans developed three hotels on the property, each one a bet that the paying invalid trade would keep coming.

One of those visitors is the single best-documented figure attached to the place. David Holmes served five terms in Congress for Virginia’s 2nd district, was appointed governor of the Mississippi Territory, and became the first elected governor of the state of Mississippi. He came to Jordan Springs in declining health, which is to say he came for the water, and he died here in 1832. It is the clearest surviving record of what the resort actually was: a place people went when they had run out of other options.

The hotel that stands today went up in 1893, built on the destination’s established appeal. It did not have long to enjoy it. Competition from other spring resorts and simple changes in taste pulled the business away, and the grand Victorian spa model faded across the region in the decades that followed.

The Monastery, the Seminary and Shalom et Benedictus

In 1953 the property was bought by the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, who ran it as a Catholic monastery and seminary. That is a sharp turn for a pleasure resort, and it left its own marks on the site, including the name of Monastery Ridge Road. Faced with declining vocations, the order leased the building to Shalom et Benedictus, which operated it as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center until 1999.

It is worth holding those three uses in mind together when you read the ghost reports. In under two centuries the same rooms housed people seeking a cure, men training for the priesthood, and people in recovery. Every one of those populations arrived in some kind of crisis. Buildings with that kind of history rarely escape a haunted reputation, with or without evidence.

Figures in Period Dress and Voices in the Old Wing

None of what follows is verified, and no part of it should be read as proof that anything supernatural occurs at Jordan Springs. These are accounts given by visitors, staff and paranormal investigators over the years.

• Apparitions in period clothing, most often described in the older parts of the building
• Footsteps in corridors reported as empty at the time
• Disembodied voices and whispers
• Unexplained knocking, usually described at night

A long-running local tradition holds that the Jordan Springs property served as a hospital and encampment during the Civil War, and sightings of soldiers are regularly explained by reference to it. That connection is widely repeated but is not confirmed by the documented history available for the site, and the apparitions reported there have never been identified as any specific person. Treat the soldier story as folklore that grew up around a Shenandoah Valley property, not as a settled fact.

The building has also drawn ghost hunters with EMF meters and audio recorders, and unusual readings have been reported. Readings of that kind are not evidence of a presence; electromagnetic fields and stray audio have ordinary explanations in a 48,000-square-foot building more than a century old and wired across several different eras.

Visiting the Historic Jordan Springs Event & Cultural Centre

This is a working business rather than an attraction. The building operates as the Historic Jordan Springs Event & Cultural Centre, hosting weddings, events and conferences, and it also provides business space to County Court Reporters. The property is owned and managed by Tonie Wallace-Aitken and Greig Aitken, with assistance from property event coordinator Colt Nutter.

There are no open ghost tours to walk into. Access depends entirely on the owners, which means contacting them in advance for permission and guidelines, and accepting that the answer may be no on any given date because a wedding is booked. Anyone turning up hoping to investigate without arrangement is trespassing on private property. The realistic route in is to attend or book an event, or to ask first and go when invited.

Sources

• Jordan Springs Hotel
• History: 1953 to 1972 Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity
• Congress (official)
• Geographic Names Information System (Nationalmap (official))
• GeoHack – Jordan Springs, Virginia
• Wikipedia: Jordan Springs, Virginia

Ghost Tours Nearby

Harpers Ferry Ghosts Self Guided Audio Walking Tourfrom $8

Affiliate links: BeyondHaunted may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

More Haunted Restaurants

Haunted Shakers Cigar BarRed Onion SalonPetes TavernMasquerade NightclubDead Presidents PubSpread Eagle Tavern