Hart House Hotel

The Haunting

The Hart House Hotel welcomed its first travelers to Medina in 1876. At that time, it was Medina's finest inn, boasting over 30 well-appointed rooms with restaurant, bar, and billiards room. After 40 years, dwindling hotel demand caused the Hart House to go dark in 1918.

For the next 85 years, the building was home to a shirt factory owned by Robert H. Newell, a clothier with a growing high-end shirt business. Extensive renovations turned the hotel into a factory, utilizing all three floors of the 14,000 square foot building for its 100 employees. The company did more than just shirts - in fact, pajamas and even undergarments were custom fit and tailored. Satisfied shirt customers included Bob Hope, John Jacob Astor, Winston Churchill, and Warren G. Harding, to name a few. Shirt workers recount seeing auras of women in white, while others speak of inexplicable yet purposeful footsteps bounding down stairs. 

In 2005, a 10-year restoration began to accommodate new businesses - Shirt Factory Cafe (aptly named for the building's history), 810 Meadworks, and a euro-inspired boutique hotel that serves to revive the building's original name and purpose. The hotel rooms, individually designed, are inspired by actual shirt factory customers like Churchill, Astor, and Hope. 

Of all the buildings in Medina, the Hart likely had more souls tread over its threshold than any other building in town. And with a long, storied past, original floors, and intact historic windows, it's no surprise that this building is haunted. People have reported hearing names called aloud when no one is around but the spirit seen most often is a woman in a long, flowing dress with shoulder-length brown hair that stands at the top of the first staircase and greets visitors unexpectedly.   

Tuck yourself in to the Hart House Hotel or dine at the Shirt Factory Cafe and see who may still be lingering around after all this time.  

Contact:

115 West Center Street
Medina, NY 14103
P: 585-735-6031