These haunted places in Miami are creepy as hell

This former Cuban Consulate in Little Haiti not only has a creepy history but an eerie present. The original owner’s wife, Paula Milord, died suddenly after a leg amputation and was buried in the back garden by her husband. Since then, people have heard piano music and smelled coffee (both things Milord allegedly liked to do), and seen a one-legged lady floating in the hallway. All in all, she seems like a friendly, hospitable ghost. The historic site now hosts plenty of private and community events, like Shabbat dinners, theatrical performances and art shows.

The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables was built in 1926 by George Merrick, who is known as the founder of Coral Gables. After opening, the hotel quickly became a big deal, hosting fashion shows and galas, along with famous guests such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Al Capone and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ghost stories began when gangster Thomas "Fatty" Walsh was shot and killed at a party there in 1929.

During World War II, the Biltmore was turned into a military hospital. Once the war was over, it continued being a hospital for veterans. It was then completely abandoned from 1968 to 1983. Its storied history of murder, hospital occupancy and its abandonment led a resident guest to tell ghost stories to visitors every Thursday night in the Biltmore’s lobby for 10 years.

The Deering Estate in Palmetto Bay is a national historical landmark. The Mediterranean stone house was the 1920s Miami estate of Charles Deering, a Chicago industrialist. Initially built on tribal burial grounds, it’s no wonder the estate is known to be haunted. Ghost hunter Colleen Kelley in 2009 said she recorded “60 ghost voices” in the mansion, including the not-creepy-at-all phrase of a woman saying, “I want some of you.” Currently, the estate is a house museum and ecological field station. Historic ghost tours occur in September and October, where guests can learn about the paranormal activity experienced by visitors and staff.

Originally dubbed the Player's State Theater, the building now known as Coconut Grove Playhouse opened in 1927 as part of the Paramount movie theater chain. Famed for its state-of-the-art air conditioning along with having the largest Wurlitzer organ in the United States, the space transitioned to a live theater in the 1950s before owners closed it in 2006 due to accumulated debt from high operating costs.

The Playhouse has been closed and abandoned since 2006, falling into disrepair and succumbing to vandalism and trespassers said to perform dark rituals. Today, the structure sits in a kind of purgatory awaiting its fate, as preservationists fight to preserve the theater almost in its entirety, while the county can’t seem to make up its mind on what it wants to do with it.   

Colony Theater opened as Paramount Pictures’ upscale, Art Deco movie theater in 1935 right on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. Throughout the decades, the theater has gone through many iterations, including a live performance venue (which it is today). Its long history has caused ghost stories to crop up, including one particularly cute (and creepy) story: a toy poodle seen running around the building. Other people have heard footsteps and seen an apparition behind the main stage.

Coral Gables’ Pinewood Cemetery is one of the oldest in Miami and the resting place of many of Dade County’s pioneers. It’s so old and has changed stewardship so many times that the recordkeeping hasn’t been the most reliable, but we know that the last recorded burial occurred in the 1940s and that there are around 200 bodies known to reside here, including one Dora Suggs. According to Miami Haunts, Suggs was brutally raped, beaten and murdered in 1905 and residents report seeing her figure hanging around her grave.

In 1983, the City of Coral Gables created an advisory board to oversee and restore the cemetery, which sat abandoned and vandalized with reports of midnight burials and late-night rituals. Its rural, wooded character has been maintained, with new native tree plantings interspersed among the tombstones.

The Miami City Cemetery has been operating since 1897, making it the oldest graveyard in the city. With almost 9,000 bodies buried there, including some of the most prominent Miamians such as the Burdine family from the famed department store and Julia Tuttle, the “Mother of Miami,” there are most definitely plenty of ghosts around—particularly in the military section where guards warn visitors not to near as day turns to dusk.

Every October, the HistoryMiami Museum hosts a tour of the cemetery by the museum’s resident historian, Dr. Paul George, and where he’ll walk you through its eerie history and strange occurrences. 

Built on the bones of an old hotel from 1937 to 1939, this lavish, Art Deco Downtown skyscraper is used primarily as​​ an event space for weddings, corporate events and parties, though its upper floors are closed to the public, leaving them ripe with paranormal activity. In 1963, Grant Stockdale, a friend of President John F. Kennedy, mysteriously fell from the 13th floor and died ten days after JFK’s assassination and some report seeing his ghost floating around.

Visitors and staff have also reported hearing running faucets in bathrooms that aren’t occupied or seeing strange figures roaming the floors, like a couple or a man with a burnt face.

The Pueblo-style Miami Springs mansion built in 1925 once belonged to Glenn Curtiss, the founder of the U.S. Aircraft Industry. Although nothing particularly gory has been officially recorded at the residence, it was abandoned for 30 years, lending itself to plenty of stories. Throughout the years, visitors have heard doors closing in empty rooms and a ghost hunter claimed the space felt “very eerie.” Now, the mansion is a museum and event space and every year around Halloween time, staff dress up the mansion as a haunted house to give guests an extra scare.

This artistically inclined hotel on Ocean Drive once served as barracks and a military hospital during WWII, when South Beach swapped vacationers for soldiers training to fight the Axis powers. It’s said that many soldiers died before deployment, sometimes for nefarious reasons (like bar brawls or mob encounters) but often by suicide. Hotel guests have heard boots marching through the hallways and the police have documented gunshots being heard around the property.   

I’m not gonna lie, I would gladly welcome an appearance by Gianni Versace’s ghost. As it turns out, some visiting his former residence have expressed feeling his calming presence through its elaborate halls. But long before the iconic designer was brutally murdered on his doorstep, the house was befallen by malice. Its first resident, Joel Freeman, died two years after moving in and his family reported feeling a dark presence, even accosting them in bed. In the years that would follow, the house became a hotel, attracting all kinds of shady figures who would be enraptured by horror at night, waking up with chills in a city that’s usually sweltering. 

The skunk ape isn’t the only supernatural being roaming the Florida Everglades. It is, after all, an ideal spot for dumping bodies, as hungry gators are good at leaving no fleshy trace behind. Perhaps one of the more famous ghost stories is the crash landing of Flight 401. For months after its unfortunate collapse, hunters and other visitors to the area started reporting people in tattered clothes under the water, and as they used some of the salvageable parts from the plane on other Easter Airlines carriers, some passengers reported seeing ghosts on board their flights.

Built in 1904, Hotel Redland was the first rooming house, post office and mercantile store in the City of Homestead. Though it briefly closed during the pandemic, the building still operates as a hotel today, featuring 13 updated rooms decorated with the occasional antique furnishing. The unassuming hotel is best known for the 1913 fire that severely damaged the building and allegedly killed several guests in their sleep. In 2022, a “ghost hunter” with a team of experts and special gear confirmed that he heard and recorded a “presence” in one of the hotel's rooms, according to a podcast by the Miami Herald. 5 S Flagler Ave, Homestead

An abandoned ghost town on its very own island, Fort Dade was an old military outpost on Egmont Key near St. Petersburg. It was developed during the Spanish-American War, and when troops were stationed there, they enjoyed tennis courts, a movie theater and a gymnasium. Today you can see forts, power stations, observation posts, bunkers, and other military relics in various stages of disrepair. You can also see relics of the town that housed 300 people, including houses and a firehouse, complete with old photos posted showing what each of the buildings originally looked like.

During the 1920s, the Olympia Improvement Corporation wanted to create the East Coast version of Hollywood right in Jupiter Island and Hobe Sound. Their goal was to build a Grecian-style town where movies could be shot and produced in the enclave two hours north of Miami. Like LA, they were hoping it would be a hub for filming and a glamorous spot for movie stars to live, especially on Jupiter Island. Though the development never came to fruition due to the Depression-era collapse of Florida real estate, you can still see the Grecian-style Olympia Picture City School built in 1924, and street signs based on Greek mythology, like Zeus and Athena, in this Hollywood-style ghost town. 

White City is both a ghost and active town. It has structures that were abandoned back in the late 19th century when its original inhabitants left. The town two and a half hours north of Miami was founded in 1893, inspired by the 1892 Chicago World’s Fair. In 1894 a man named Colonel Myers showed up promising he had great plans for it. He collected payments for land parcels, as well as money for his “future bank.” Soon after, he disappeared, taking most of the money with him. Today, you can still see some of the original structures like the White City School, Jorgensen House and White City Mercantile.

Ellaville was founded around 1861 thanks to businessman George Drew who named it for Ella, his African-American servant. He built a mansion on the Suwannee River and opened a sawmill that became the largest one in Florida. The town boomed in the 1870s, but less than 20 years later, the mill in Ellaville burned down, and soon after, there was major flooding before it became completely abandoned in 1942. The Drew Mansion burned to the ground in the 1970s, but today you can still see its foundation, an original bridge, an old cemetery and the sign for Ellaville.