public

Reported

McMenamins Grand Lodge has the kind of haunting that feels domestic before it turns disturbing: footsteps in empty halls, furniture moved after dark, beds shaking, water turning on by itself, and unseen hands making themselves known. Its best-known spirit is the Lavender Lady, often preceded by the scent of flowers, but reports also include vanishing children, basement shadows, chest-tapping entities, and rooms that seem to reset themselves after people leave. The building was once a home for the aged, infirm, widows, and orphans; today, it sometimes feels as if not everyone checked out when the property changed hands.

The Grand Lodge began as the Masonic and Eastern Star Home of Oregon, planned as a refuge for elderly and distressed Masons, widows, and orphans. Construction began in 1920, the first resident arrived in 1922, and a Children’s Cottage opened in 1926 before the orphanage was later phased out. Over the decades, the property weathered financial strain, farm operations, storm damage, institutional change, and eventual vacancy before McMenamins renovated and reopened it in 2000. It is a building with two lives: one as a charitable home, another as a hotel, with a long corridor between them.