The Haunted Patterson Inn: One Night Was Enough for Croke

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated September 10, 2026 · How we verify

Capitol Hill wears its money on the outside. Walk east from downtown Denver and the blocks fill with turrets, dormers and heavy stone porches raised by people who got rich quickly in Colorado and wanted everyone to know it. One of the survivors of that building spree is the haunted Patterson Inn, a French Chateauesque mansion at 11th and Pennsylvania that has been a private residence, a dance studio, an advertising office and, now, a bed and breakfast where the guest reviews sometimes mention more than the breakfast.

What follows keeps the documented history and the ghost stories in separate rooms, because they belong there.

The Patterson Inn at a Glance

• Where: Capitol Hill, Denver, Colorado, at 11th and Pennsylvania
• Built: 1891
• Built by: Thomas B. Croke, a Denver businessman
• Named for: Thomas M. Patterson, U.S. senator and newspaper owner
• Style: French Chateauesque
• Later uses: dance studio, advertising agency, bed and breakfast
• Recognition: listed on the National Register of Historic Places
• Status: operating inn, rooms bookable

A Mansion Built on the Back of a Boom

The house went up in 1891, near the top of a long run of Denver prosperity. After the city finally secured its rail connection, Denver grew into the supply and service center for a huge stretch of the Rocky Mountain West, and wealthy residents put their profits into commercial blocks, hotels and enormous private houses. Wikipedia’s history of the city lists the Croke, Patterson and Campbell mansions at 11th and Pennsylvania among exactly that class of building, alongside the Brown Palace Hotel and the since-demolished Moffat Mansion.

The timing matters. By 1890 Denver had become the second-largest city west of Omaha, Nebraska, and the boom that paid for houses like this one collapsed with the Silver Crash of 1893, two years after Croke’s mansion was finished. Grand Capitol Hill homes of this vintage went through owners, subdivisions and hard uses in the decades that followed, which is a large part of why so few of them survive in one piece.

Thomas Croke’s One Night in the House

The story attached to the builder is the one every account repeats: Thomas B. Croke commissioned the mansion, spent a single night under its roof, and never came back, driven off by superstition. Two years later the house passed to Thomas M. Patterson, the U.S. senator and newspaper proprietor whose name it carries today. Patterson’s family occupied the house into the mid-1920s.

Treat the Croke anecdote as folklore rather than record. It is a tidy origin story for a haunted house, it is told without a date or a source, and it has the shape of a legend built backward from a reputation. That does not make it false. It does mean nobody should present it as documented fact, and the inn’s ghost lore leans on it heavily.

Dance Studio, Ad Agency, Guest House

What happened to the mansion after the Pattersons left is more prosaic and, for once, more verifiable in outline. The building was repurposed repeatedly through the twentieth century, serving among other things as a dance studio and as an advertising agency before being restored as a bed and breakfast. Its listing on the National Register of Historic Places reflects that architectural and historic value rather than anything paranormal. The register does not evaluate ghosts.

What Guests Report in The Prague and The Paris

Everything in this section is anecdotal. None of it has been demonstrated, and the Patterson Inn has not been shown to be haunted. These are the experiences guests and staff describe:

• Footsteps in empty halls. Steps heard on floors and stairs when nobody is in that part of the house.
• Sudden cold drafts. Localized cold spots that guests distinguish from ordinary air movement.
• Whispers. Faint voices with no identifiable speaker.
• The sense of being watched. Reported most often in the guest rooms named The Prague and The Paris, which have become the focus of the inn’s ghost reputation.
• Light physical contact. Nudges and touches attributed to nobody present.

Two things are worth saying plainly. First, plenty of guests stay here and experience nothing at all, and the accounts vary widely enough that no single consistent story emerges. Second, a stone mansion built in 1891 with original woodwork, radiators, tall windows and a century of settling produces cold pockets, creaks and unaccountable noises as a matter of physics. That is the first explanation to rule out before reaching for a second.

Staying at the Patterson Inn

Unlike most buildings with this kind of reputation, this one is straightforward to visit: it is a working bed and breakfast, so you book a room and sleep in it. The Prague and The Paris are the rooms named most often in ghost accounts, and anyone specifically chasing that angle should ask about availability when reserving.

Otherwise, treat it as what it primarily is: a restored Capitol Hill mansion within easy reach of downtown Denver, the State Capitol and the city’s museum district. Guests should respect that other people are paying to sleep here, keep investigation quiet and confined to their own room, and follow the house rules. Ghost hunting can be risky and disruptive in occupied buildings, so use common sense and never enter private areas of the property without permission.

Sources

• The Big Apple: Wall Street of the West (17th Street in Denver)
• Colorado Counties (Colorado (official))
• Denver City Town Company Record Book, Mss.01813 (accession 99.225), History Colorado.
• Colorado Municipal Incorporations
• babel.hathitrust.org
• Wikipedia: Denver

Ghost Tours Nearby

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