Haunted place · Louisiana, United States

Brennan's

Updated November 20269 sources How to visit

As seen on Ghost Hunters
5 archive documents

A famed Creole restaurant in a 1795 Royal Street mansion, New Orleans, home of Paul Morphy, with a "haunted" Red Room that TAPS probed in 2005.

The story

Brennan's began as a different restaurant in a different building. In 1946 Owen Brennan, an Irish-American New Orleanian, opened the Vieux Carre restaurant on Bourbon Street, facing the Old Absinthe House. It was there that the flaming dessert Bananas Foster was invented. Brennan arranged a lease on a grand Royal Street house in 1954, but he died in November 1955, before the move; his family completed it, and the restaurant settled at 417 Royal Street in 1955-56.

The building itself is far older. The two-story mansion went up in 1795 for Don Jose Faurie, whom the restaurant describes as a great-grandfather of the painter Edgar Degas. It later served as the Banque de la Louisiane, often called the state's first bank. The Morphy family owned it for half a century, from 1841 to 1891, and Paul Morphy, the chess prodigy regarded as the unofficial world champion of his day, lived there until he died in 1884. In 1920 William Ratcliffe Irby donated the house to Tulane University, which later leased it to the Brennans; the restaurant finally bought it in 1984.

The family business had its share of drama. A 1973 dispute over expansion split the Brennans into separate companies: the original Royal Street restaurant stayed with Owen's widow and children, while his siblings went on to open their own restaurants in New Orleans as well as Houston and Dallas. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 spared this stretch of the French Quarter from floodwater, yet the building was badly damaged when food in second-floor refrigerators rotted and leaked through the floors, and the wine cellar lost temperature control, spoiling the entire collection. Brennan's reopened on June 8, 2006, only to close on June 28, 2013 after its owners ran into financial trouble. New owners, including a cousin from another branch of the family, acquired the building and business at auction and spent more than a year restoring it. The work turned up a hidden door, though not the tunnel long rumored to exist. The restaurant reopened in the fall of 2014.

The legend

Brennan's ghost reputation is modern and leans almost entirely on what staff told one television crew. In Ghost Hunters Season 2, Episode 3, "The Red Room" (Sci Fi Channel, aired August 10, 2005, filmed in February that year), the TAPS team came to investigate the restaurant's so-called haunted dining room.

On camera, a staff member offered three stories. The darkest concerns the Red Room: a father is said to have murdered his wife and son there and then hanged himself from the chandelier. No name, date or record of such a crime has been located, and the tale may be a garbled echo of the house's long list of real occupants. The second involved a 27-year-old man who wore a bedsheet as a ghost costume at a party and died in his sleep; again no details are given. The third came from a construction worker who reported seeing a woman at a window in the Chantelclair Room. Popular websites add cold spots and the sense of being watched in the Red Room, and one travel listicle mentions an old woman at a window, but these are weak, uncited sources. Online guesses that the ghost is Owen Brennan, Paul Morphy or one of the banking family have no support at all.

The investigation itself was underwhelming. TAPS worked mainly in the Chantelclair Room, since a private party cut short their time in the Red Room, and the team concluded that they had found no evidence of spiritual activity. Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson retold the case in their 2007 book Ghost Hunting, in a chapter titled "The Haunted Dining Room, February 2005." In short, this is a beloved local story with no documented basis, and the one formal investigation came up empty.

What remains today

The 1795 mansion still presents its facade and decorative wrought-iron balcony to Royal Street, and its courtyard, photographed as early as 1919, survives. Inside, the dining rooms include the Red Room and the Chantelclair Room named in the TV episode, along with rooms looking onto the courtyard. The building carries layered history (colonial merchant house, early bank, the Morphy family home) and is still the home of Brennan's and its Bananas Foster, after the 2013-14 restoration refreshed its interiors.

Visiting

Brennan's is an operating restaurant in the French Quarter, open to the public, so the way to see it is simply to book a meal; breakfast and brunch are served there. Reservations are wise. The restaurant does not run ghost tours, and staff are working, so ask about the Red Room politely rather than wandering into private dining spaces. Several French Quarter walking tours pass along Royal Street and may mention the building. Chess fans can look for the history of the old Paul Morphy house, which the building still recalls.

The ghosts

Spirit

The man in the sheet

Said to be A 27-year-old man said to have died in his sleep after wearing a sheet as a ghost costume

A second anecdote told on camera concerns a young man who dressed as a ghost in a bedsheet at a party and died in his sleep. No date or details are given.

First reported: 2005 (told on Ghost Hunters). Reported by: Restaurant staff on Ghost Hunters S02E03 (2005)

Family member

The Red Room murderer

Said to be A father said to have killed his wife and son and hanged himself; no historical record found

Staff told TAPS that the Red Room earned its nickname as the haunted dining room because a man murdered his wife and son there before hanging himself from the chandelier. No name, date or record supports the story.

First reported: 2005 (told on Ghost Hunters). Reported by: Restaurant staff on Ghost Hunters S02E03 (2005)

Ghostly lady