Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant

The story

The Cosmopolitan Hotel began life as the Casa de Bandini, one of the grand adobe homes of Mexican-era San Diego. Juan Bandini, a prominent ranchero and cattle man, built it between 1827 and 1829 as a single-story, U-shaped adobe in the Spanish colonial tradition.

Bandini's fortunes did not last. Deep in debt, he sold the house in 1859 and was dead within the year. Then, in 1862, flooding and an earthquake ruined one of its wings. The house's second career began in 1869, when Albert Seeley, who ran a stage line, paid $2,000 in gold for the property. With money inherited by his wife, Emily, Seeley rebuilt the old adobe as an L-shaped hotel in the Greek Revival manner, restoring the ground floor and adding a wood-framed upper story with balconies. Renamed the Cosmopolitan, it offered some 20 rooms to travelers breaking the stage journey between Los Angeles and San Diego.

The good years were brief. The arrival of the railroads and the growth of a new downtown, around today's Gaslamp Quarter, drew business away from Old Town. By 1882 the rooms stood empty, and in 1888 Seeley let the property go. In the decades that followed the building served other purposes, including a stint as an olive factory.

The house is now part of Old Town San Diego State Historic Park and a contributing building in its National Register listing. A restoration overseen by the State of California and completed around 2010 brought it back to its 1870s appearance as a working hotel and restaurant; according to the hotel, about 80 percent of the 19th-century structure survives.

One romantic story attached to the house is probably not true. Bandini's daughter Ysidora is said to have tumbled from a balcony straight into the arms of Lieutenant Cave Couts, who happened to be riding past. The hotel's own history page notes that the house had no balcony at the time, so the tale is best treated as legend.

The legend

The Cosmopolitan is one of Old Town's best-known haunted addresses, and its ghosts are mostly tied to the Bandini family. The spirit named most often is Ysidora Bandini. Staff and guests say she keeps to Room 11, where lights are said to switch on and off by themselves, and that she has a taste for harmless pranks. A 2025 Times of San Diego guide adds that, according to some, Juan Bandini himself never left his house, and lists further reports, mostly from rooms 4, 5 and 11: footsteps with no one there, figures standing at the foot of the bed, doors swinging open or creaking and objects that move. Those details come from a single source.

The most charming entity is a cat. In 2022 Yelp ranked the Cosmopolitan third on its list of America's most haunted hotels, a ranking built by counting haunting-related words in customer reviews, and one reviewer quoted in the coverage warned of a "haunted cat" that may cuddle up next to you.

No dated first report of the haunting could be found, and no named witness has given a published first-hand account. The reputation was in place before television arrived: in 2011 the San Diego paranormal researcher Bonnie Vent claimed credit for steering *Ghost Adventures* toward the hotel.

The resulting episode, part of Season 5 (listed by Wikipedia as episode 56, aired October 7, 2011; guides number it differently), became a small controversy before it even aired. In an August 2011 HuffPost article, Vent and the hotel's operator challenged several of the crew's claims. Vent denied being "partially possessed" and explained that what she danced was "an old fashioned Mexican Tarantella" rather than any Native American rite. The crew had suggested Bandini slept for years in the room where interviews were filmed, but that room is on the upper floor, which was built after his death. A passing remark by a guitarist was turned into a story that Bandini killed and buried his wife; the operator said the musician had been misquoted, and nothing in the house's history supports it. Faces carved on furniture were also wrongly presented as Bandini relatives. The show's executive producer apologized and promised corrections.

The lesson for visitors: the Ysidora and cat stories are genuine local lore, but anything set in a "Bandini bedroom" upstairs cannot be historical, and the murder story should be dismissed.

What remains today

The building combines the original adobe ground floor of the late 1820s with Seeley's 1869 wooden second story and balconies. Since the restoration it has operated again as a hotel with restaurants, brought back to its 1870s character, within the boundaries of the state historic park.

Visiting

The Cosmopolitan is an operating hotel and restaurant, so it is fully legal and easy to visit: have a meal, look around the public rooms, or book an overnight stay. Ask the hotel whether Room 11, the room associated with Ysidora, can be reserved. Please respect the privacy of other guests and staff areas if you go ghost hunting at night.

The hotel stands inside Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, so a visit combines well with the park's other historic buildings and museums. Some private Old Town ghost walks reportedly include the Cosmopolitan on their routes, but this could not be confirmed; check with operators directly. Current information is on the hotel's website (oldtowncosmopolitan.com).

Sources

1. Wikimedia Commons category : Cosmopolitan Hotel (San Diego) — Wikimedia Commons
2. USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for San Diego, CA 1958 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1958 · Public domain (USGS)
3. USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for La Jolla, CA 1903 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1903 · Public domain (USGS)
4. "'Ghost Adventures' clashes with paranormal researchers..." (David Moye, 12 Aug 2011) — HuffPost — HuffPost
5. "Ghosts off the beaten path" (Debbie L. Sklar, 14 Oct 2025) — Times of San Diego — Times of San Diego
6. Official website
7. "These 2 San Diego hotels among the most haunted in America" (21 Oct 2022) — KOGO / iHeart — KOGO / iHeart
8. "These Walls Have a Story to Tell" — Cosmopolitan Hotel & Restaurant (official site) — Cosmopolitan Hotel & Restaurant (official site
9. "Two San Diego hotels among most haunted in US, according to Yelp" — FOX 5 San Diego — FOX 5 San Diego
10. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.