Live Ghost Hunting at Hotel Monteleone: Searching for Ghost Children Above New Orleans

If you were a ghost child spending eternity inside one of New Orleans' fanciest hotels, where would you hang out?

My vote was the rooftop pool.

That was the logic behind our latest live ghost hunt at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. Instead of starting in our room surrounded by every paranormal gadget we own, we headed all the way to the roof, looked out over the French Quarter, and waited to see whether any of the hotel's famously playful ghost children might decide to join us.

Spoiler alert:

They did not.

In fact, during this particular livestream, the living children were considerably easier to find than the dead ones.

But that's the fun—and sometimes the frustration—of doing paranormal investigations live. You don't know what's going to happen.

And sometimes what happens is absolutely nothing.

The Historic Hotel Monteleone

The Hotel Monteleone stands on Royal Street in the heart of the French Quarter and has been part of New Orleans since 1886, when Sicilian immigrant Antonio Monteleone purchased the Hotel Victor.

The property expanded repeatedly over the following decades. It became the Commercial Hotel before finally taking the Monteleone family name in 1909. Five generations of the Monteleone family have operated the hotel, and in 2026 it celebrated its 140th anniversary.

Today it's probably most famous for its luxurious old-New-Orleans atmosphere and the Carousel Bar, which opened in 1949. The circular bar actually rotates, completing a revolution roughly every 15 minutes.

It also has another reputation.

The Hotel Monteleone is supposedly very haunted.

Even the hotel itself embraces the stories, describing reports of doors opening on their own, elevators stopping on unexpected floors, and shadows of children appearing in the hallways.

Naturally, I had to stay there.

Starting Our Ghost Hunt on the Rooftop

For our livestream, we started beside the Hotel Monteleone's rooftop pool.

The pool sits high above the French Quarter with an impressive view across New Orleans, and I have to admit that even without ghosts, it was worth going up there.

There was only one problem.

It wasn't exactly quiet.

Between the wind, city noise, people using the pool, music drifting through the night and what sounded like boats along the Mississippi, this wasn't going to be an ideal place to listen for faint disembodied voices.

That's something that becomes very obvious when you ghost hunt live.

Atmosphere is not the same thing as controlled conditions.

A rooftop in New Orleans may look wonderfully spooky at night, but when you're trying to identify a mysterious sound, you also have to contend with an entire city happening beneath you.

Are There Ghost Children at the Hotel Monteleone?

The ghost children are among the Monteleone's best-known paranormal stories.

The hotel's official history says that paranormal investigators visiting in 2003 claimed to have contacted more than a dozen entities in the building, including several former employees and a young boy named Maurice Begere. The hotel presents those contacts as findings of the investigating group, not independently verified proof that those spirits exist.

Maurice is the most famous of them.

According to the traditional story, Maurice was a small child whose parents, Jacques and Josephine Begere, frequently stayed at the hotel while attending performances at the French Opera House.

One evening they left Maurice with a nanny.

The child reportedly developed a high fever, suffered convulsions and died while his parents were away.

The grieving parents supposedly returned to the hotel repeatedly afterward. According to the legend, Maurice eventually appeared to his mother and reassured her that he was all right.

Whether every detail of that story can be historically documented is a separate question.

The paranormal part certainly can't.

But reports of a childlike apparition have become deeply attached to the Monteleone's reputation.

And most of those stories center on one particular floor.

The Haunted 14th Floor That Isn't Really the 14th Floor

Hotel Monteleone has one of my favorite haunted-hotel quirks:

The 14th floor is actually the 13th floor.

Like many hotels, the Monteleone skips the number 13. So the elevator takes you from the 12th floor to a floor labeled 14.

Which means that when people talk about paranormal activity on the haunted 14th floor, they're technically talking about Floor Number You Shall Not Name.

New Orleans' official tourism site even notes that the supposedly haunted 14th floor is actually the building's 13th. Guests have reported hearing the footsteps of Maurice there.

There are also stories about elevators mysteriously stopping on that floor even when passengers haven't selected it.

One frequently repeated legend tells of guests whose elevator delivered them to the 14th floor, where they supposedly encountered children dressed in clothing from another era playing in the hallway. Other versions describe elevators repeatedly stopping there when young children are riding.

Creepy story?

Absolutely.

Evidence that dead children are operating the elevators?

Not quite.

Elevators malfunction. They respond to calls from other floors. Modern elevator systems perform programmed operations that passengers may not understand.

Still, if an elevator repeatedly delivered me to the same allegedly haunted floor in the middle of the night, I would probably get out and have a look.

For science.

Obviously.

Looking for the Ghost Children

Eventually we left the rooftop and went exploring.

Since actual children were still using the pool, I was careful not to livestream them. That's one of the complications of doing paranormal investigations in a working hotel.

The hotel might be haunted, but it is also full of people who did not sign up to star in a Spooky Cat Lady ghost hunt.

So we headed toward the haunted 14th floor.

The elevators themselves were interesting—old-fashioned, a little quirky, and exactly the kind of elevator that can make a haunted hotel feel even more haunted.

But ours did what an elevator is supposed to do.

Mostly.

We reached the 14th floor and started walking.

No children laughing.

No footsteps running toward us.

No translucent Victorian toddler asking us to play.

Nothing.

The Hotel Looked Like It Changed Around Us

One thing I noticed while walking the 14th floor was how dramatically the hotel seemed to change from one section to another.

Different carpet.

Different wallpaper.

Different lighting.

Some areas felt much darker than others.

It almost looked as though we had walked into another hotel.

That's interesting from a paranormal-investigation standpoint because environmental changes can affect how creepy a place feels.

A darker hallway immediately increases the sense that something might be hiding ahead.

Different patterns and shadows can encourage pareidolia.

An older or unfamiliar section of a building may also feel subtly "wrong" simply because your brain is expecting the visual environment to remain consistent.

None of that means somebody who sees something strange in the hallway imagined it.

But it's worth noticing how strongly our surroundings influence what we expect to experience.

That Strange Swaying Feeling

At one point I suddenly felt as though the building was moving.

It reminded me of being on a cruise ship.

That would be a wonderfully spooky sensation to report from a haunted floor.

Except there were several ordinary possibilities immediately available.

I was walking while looking at the livestream screen.

I was moving through an unfamiliar hallway.

I was high inside a large building.

We'd spent plenty of time walking around New Orleans.

And staring at a moving image while your body is moving can temporarily confuse your visual and vestibular systems.

In other words:

My brain may have simply disagreed with my feet about what direction we were traveling.

Before we blame Maurice, I would like to repeat the experience while standing completely still.

If the hallway then starts rocking like the deck of a cruise ship, we'll talk.

The Carousel Bar: Haunted or Just Moving?

Earlier we had visited the hotel's famous Carousel Bar.

That location also has paranormal stories attached to it. People sometimes report cold spots or an uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

But there are a couple of rather obvious variables here.

First:

The bar moves.

The Hotel Monteleone confirms that its Carousel Bar continuously rotates, completing a full revolution approximately every 15 minutes.

If you're sitting somewhere drinking alcohol while the floor underneath you slowly rotates, feeling a little odd doesn't immediately require a paranormal explanation.

Second, it's one of the most famous bars in New Orleans.

People want to see it.

People photograph it.

People look through the surrounding spaces at it.

So if you feel like people are watching you while sitting at the Carousel Bar...

They may actually be watching you.

And cold spots inside a heavily air-conditioned hotel in New Orleans don't surprise me much either.

This is exactly why context matters.

What About the Maid Who Keeps Cleaning?

During the livestream I mentioned another reported Monteleone spirit: a maid who apparently refuses to stop working even after death.

This one actually appears in the hotel's broader documented ghost lore.

Historic Hotels of America describes a reported spirit nicknamed "Mrs. Clean." According to the paranormal story, investigators claimed the woman had generations of family members who also worked at the Monteleone.

When investigators supposedly asked why she remained there, she reportedly explained that she continued checking rooms after housekeeping because she wanted to make sure the hotel's standards were maintained.

Imagine dying and still having to check whether housekeeping fluffed the pillows properly.

Absolutely not.

If I become a ghost, I am retiring.

Still, guests have attributed objects being moved or rooms apparently being rearranged to this housekeeping spirit.

That doesn't establish a paranormal cause, of course.

Hotels are particularly difficult locations for that kind of claim because actual housekeeping employees enter rooms.

So do guests.

So do companions who swear they didn't move your charger even though they definitely moved your charger.

To make an object-moving claim interesting, we'd need much tighter controls.

The Mysterious Businessman

Another spirit I mentioned during the livestream is a businessman said to appear unexpectedly before vanishing.

That story appears to correspond with a Monteleone ghost traditionally called Solemn John.

Older material associated with the hotel identified Solemn John as a businessman from Tennessee who supposedly died at the Monteleone during the 1920s. Some later accounts identify him as John Wagner and say his death was a suicide connected with failed investments.

Those details should be treated as part of the ghost legend unless separately verified through historical records.

But the idea of a solemn 1920s businessman endlessly wandering a grand old New Orleans hotel certainly fits the setting.

We didn't see him.

Maybe he was attending a spectral board meeting.

I Accidentally Picked a Better Haunted Location Than I Knew

Here's the funny part.

We went to the rooftop because I thought ghost children might like the pool.

But while researching this afterward, I discovered another legend associated specifically with the rooftop.

Some accounts describe a woman known as the Poolside Lady, supposedly connected with a suicide pact involving her boyfriend. According to the story, she died while he did not, and her apparition has subsequently been reported around the rooftop pool.

I haven't found strong primary historical documentation supporting that story, so I'm filing this firmly under hotel ghost legend, not established history.

But apparently we were investigating the correct place for the wrong ghost.

And she didn't show up either.

Typical.

We Did Hear One Strange Thing

There was one odd little moment during our stay that I mentioned during the livestream.

From our room, we heard music that sounded remarkably like an ice cream truck.

We couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

We hadn't seen an ice cream truck or an obvious nearby source.

Was it paranormal?

I have absolutely no reason to think so.

New Orleans is noisy.

Music comes from everywhere.

Boats travel the Mississippi.

Bars have live bands.

Vehicles pass through the streets.

Sound bounces between buildings.

The fact that we couldn't immediately identify a sound doesn't transform it into evidence.

But it was weird.

And "weird but unexplained" is a perfectly acceptable category.

Not everything has to immediately become either GHOST or DEBUNKED.

Sometimes the correct answer is:

"I have no idea what that was."

Why We Didn't Bring All the Ghost-Hunting Equipment

Unlike our investigations inside our hotel room, I didn't drag an entire paranormal laboratory onto the roof.

That was deliberate.

The rooftop and hallways are public spaces.

People are walking around.

Guests are swimming.

Elevators are operating.

Phones are transmitting.

Music is playing.

Air conditioning systems are running.

And I can't control most of it.

Setting up sensitive paranormal equipment in that environment could create a parade of meaningless triggers.

A REM pod going off beside an elevator isn't particularly exciting.

An EMF spike around hotel wiring isn't surprising.

A mysterious voice captured beside a pool full of people isn't much of an EVP.

Sometimes less equipment is actually better investigation.

We explored.

We observed.

We listened.

And anything requiring more controlled testing could wait until we returned to our room.

Privacy Is Another Challenge With Live Ghost Hunting

Something else became obvious during this livestream.

You have to constantly watch where the camera is pointing.

At the rooftop pool, actual children were swimming nearby.

When people approached in the hallways, I pointed the camera toward the ground rather than filming strangers.

That's just part of investigating a working hotel respectfully.

A haunted hotel isn't an abandoned asylum.

People are sleeping there.

People are on vacation.

People are swimming.

Somebody may be returning from Bourbon Street having made several life choices they don't particularly want broadcast on YouTube.

Their privacy takes priority over my ghost hunt.

Even if Maurice decides to appear directly behind them.

Sorry, Maurice.

Nothing Paranormal Happened

After exploring the rooftop and walking the haunted 14th floor, my conclusion from this part of our investigation was fairly simple.

I didn't experience anything I could reasonably call paranormal.

No ghost children appeared.

We didn't hear unexplained laughter.

Nothing obviously moved.

The elevators didn't mysteriously abduct us and dump us onto the haunted floor.

Mrs. Clean did not reorganize anything.

Solemn John didn't materialize to conduct mysterious businessman business.

The Poolside Lady didn't appear.

Maurice didn't come out to play.

For a famously haunted hotel, it was remarkably normal.

Does That Mean Hotel Monteleone Isn't Haunted?

No.

It means that during this livestream, we didn't observe convincing paranormal activity.

Those aren't the same statement.

A negative investigation cannot prove that a location has never experienced anything unusual.

But the reverse is also true.

Hundreds of ghost stories don't prove that something supernatural is causing them.

That's why I like investigating places with strong paranormal reputations.

The Hotel Monteleone has been associated with ghost stories for generations. The hotel itself discusses them openly, and a paranormal team that investigated the property in 2003 claimed to identify more than a dozen entities.

That's interesting.

But a paranormal investigator saying they contacted a spirit is still a claim.

What I want is evidence I can examine.

Something repeatable.

Something difficult to explain normally.

Something that survives scrutiny after the spooky hotel hallway, the darkness and the ghost stories are taken away.

We didn't get that during this livestream.

But the Real Investigation Was Still Coming

This live ghost hunt was only our walk-through.

Later, we planned to investigate inside our room using night vision and our regular ghost-hunting equipment, where we could control the environment much better.

That's where equipment like EMF meters, REM pods, environmental sensors and audio recorders becomes more useful.

In a hotel room, I can establish where the electronics are.

I can test the air conditioning.

I can document when somebody moves.

I can place equipment somewhere and leave it alone.

And if something strange happens, we have a much better chance of determining what caused it.

That may not be as dramatic as wandering through a dark hallway yelling, "SHOW YOURSELF!"

But I'm not trying to scare a ghost into giving me content.

I'm trying to figure out whether there's actually anything there.

Live Ghost Hunting at the Monteleone

This wasn't the most active ghost hunt we've ever done.

Actually, it was pretty boring.

But I think that's exactly why live ghost hunts are worth showing.

When you watch an edited paranormal investigation, several hours can become twenty minutes.

The silence disappears.

The waiting disappears.

The ordinary noises disappear.

And what's left are the moments that seem interesting.

A livestream gives you the other side.

You see us walking.

Waiting.

Losing the connection in the elevator.

Trying not to film strangers.

Wondering where music is coming from.

Getting distracted by something interesting in the New Orleans skyline.

And repeatedly asking ghosts to do something while the ghosts apparently have better plans.

That's what investigating is really like.

Sometimes the most haunted hotel in New Orleans is just...

a hotel.

At least for twenty minutes.

And if something eventually happens that I genuinely can't explain, all those quiet investigations will make that moment much more important.

Because I'm not looking for a reason to say a place is haunted.

I'm looking for a reason I can't say it isn't.

Until then, Maurice and the rest of the Monteleone ghosts remain exactly where they started:

In the very interesting category labeled maybe.

Have you stayed at the Hotel Monteleone? Did anything strange happen on the 14th floor, around the elevators, at the Carousel Bar or near the rooftop pool?

Tell me your story.

I especially want to hear from people who experienced something before they knew the hotel's ghost legends.

Those are always the stories that get my attention.

Stay spooky, cats.