The Lodge in Cloudcroft: A Night with Rebecca

Have you ever stayed at the Lodge in Cloudcroft? This historic hotel has a special place in my heart, as it’s where my husband and I have gone for two of our anniversaries. It is a gorgeous place that has done its best to preserve its history.

But many people swear the Lodge is haunted. I didn’t believe it after our first time here. But the second time, while we had a lovely time, we also had some spine-chilling moments that made even my skeptic husband believe in ghosts.

The Haunting

There is undoubtedly something about the atmosphere of the place that feels heavy and…haunted. People tell tales of footsteps, doors opening and closing, shadow figures, and ashtrays sliding across tables. Staff report feeling cold spots and lights turning on and off at random. One bartender and several patrons saw a woman dancing in the saloon, who vanished when she was told the bar was closed. Guests have reported strange things happening, especially in the Governor’s Suite and the Tower.

One of the main ghosts is supposedly a chambermaid from the 1930s, Rebecca Potter or “Becky.” Rebecca was allegedly murdered by her lumberjack boyfriend after he caught her in bed with another man. The date usually given for her murder is August 18, 1934.

Rebecca has become so notorious that the Lodge’s restaurant is named after her. A painting and a stained glass portrait of her hangs in the Lodge. A lady likes to dress up as Rebecca and pose in the windows for striking ghostly photographs.

A cosplay of Rebecca. Not my photo but sent to me by the model.

Rebecca is thought of as a voluptuous redhead with blue eyes. But bear in mind that this was just a caricature created by Jerry Sanders, one of the Lodge’s many owners, who imagined her this way and had her painted and hung in the lobby in the 1980s.

Jerry Sanders’ imagining of murdered chambermaid ghost Rebecca

Many guests report interesting paranormal experiences here, often featuring Rebecca. Before Rebecca became a signature of the Lodge in the late 1980s, three different guests had similar experiences with a young chambermaid. They all described her as having auburn hair, aged 19 or 20, pretty, and wearing a traditional maid outfit. They saw her busy cleaning brass or other activities before simply disappearing. Other employees assured them that she was not a current employee. These details emerged before the caricature of the fancy redhead became famous.

Jerry Sanders appears to be the one who capitalized on Rebecca. Through newspaper stories and portraits of Rebecca in the lobby, he managed to make the ghost story one of the selling points of the Lodge. The Lodge ghost stories existed before this, but ghosts were thought to be bad for business, so the tales were hushed up.

In the early 90s, a family member of mine took a summer job washing dishes for Rebecca’s Restaurant. He was often the last person to leave Rebecca’s. He would have to turn off the light to the kitchen and walk down a long, dark hallway to exit. Rebecca never did anything to scare him. But he remembers feeling a presence and, once or twice, breath on his neck.

First (Uneventful) Stay at the Lodge

When I first stayed at the Lodge in 2019, I thought it was lovely. I was charmed by its old rustic Continental style and the thoughtful features throughout the hotel.

We enjoyed a magical dinner while someone played the piano, we soaked in the hot tub, and then we spent an uneventful night in one of the standard rooms.

This was that magical dinner:

In the morning, we felt happy and refreshed. We enjoyed a nice break fast and coffee on the terrace while taking in the scent of the towering lodgepole pines around us. Then we headed home, determined to come back, and determined that the Lodge was not haunted at all.

Our Second (Quite Eventful) Stay

Four years later, we decided to return for our anniversary again. This time, I booked the honeymoon suite. This is how it looks on the website:

The honeymoon suite is undoubtedly lovely. There is a little entryway with stairs that lead into the bedroom, past a little table and two chairs and a big mirror. The four-post bed and furniture are upholstered in rich brocade. There is also a large bathroom with a whirlpool tub and a separate closet for the toilet. A TV, fridge, and microwave are there to briefly remind you that you are not in 1910.

I requested for a bottle of champagne and a half dozen chocolate strawberries to be waiting in our room. The strawberries were missing when we checked in. I inquired about it downstairs and was told by the front desk guy that he had no idea about anything like that. I had to ask around and finally learned that the strawberries were bad, so they had to get more to make our chocolate-covered strawberries. We eventually got them and they were divine.

The dinner menu at Rebecca’s has been pared down since Covid. Now, there is merely an offering of hamburgers and sweet potato fries, among other typical restaurant fare. A little disappointing, but still delicious.

After dinner, my husband and I climbed into the historic light tower. A lightning storm was raging around the Lodge and we were mesmerized by the theatrics visible from the tower’s windows. We also took in the hundreds of names carved into the timbers making up the ceiling. The floor creaked under our feet as we made our way back down the narrow stairway, and we actually scared a couple in the area below, who thought we were ghosts at first!

Due to the violent weather, the hot tub was out of the question. So we retired to the St. James’s Bar, adjacent to Rebecca’s Restaurant. I sipped on Tom Collins and enjoyed conversation with some interesting characters.

One of the other patrons told me that she was using the basement bathroom once when she realized she had no toilet paper. She said out loud, “Oh, crap,” since she thought she was alone. Graciously, another guest’s hand appeared under the stall door, proffering a wad of toilet paper. “Thank you,” she said, to no reply. When she exited the stall, she realized the stall door next to her was open and no one was inside, and she had not heard anyone leave through the creaky door. “Rebecca,” she said aloud. Since then, she swore that she and Rebecca had a bond.

I decided to use this bathroom and see if Rebecca, or anything, was there. As soon as I stepped into the bathroom, I felt my heart go into my throat and my hair stood on end. Something in that room did not like me. The hostile vibe made me feel like something terrible was going to happen to me. I felt watched (and hated) as I quickly used the restroom. No one handed me any toilet paper under the stall, they just wanted me out! I hurried out of there as soon as I could and felt ill for the rest of the night.

I later read about a secret room down in that basement, mere feet from the public restrooms. Its entrance is partially bricked up in the wall of the laundry room and covered by a false electrical box. It is empty and contains remnants of an old servants’ staircase that now leads to nowhere. If that isn’t creepy.

Back in the honeymoon suite, I felt watched from the dark recesses of the bathroom. I eventually had to pull the curtains down around our bed to sleep comfortably. My poor husband, who never gets bad vibes, was tortured all night by soft footsteps in the carpet, the bed canopy moving gently as someone unseen brushed by it, creaking in the chair next to our bed, and the sensation of being watched. He did not sleep a wink.

Eerily, his experiences were not unlike the experiences of other men who have stayed in the Lodge. He is not one to believe in ghosts or read about the paranormal, so there is no way he knew about others’ experiences.

The next day, back home down the mountain, I was miserable. I could not shake my depressed mood. I cried for hours for no reason beyond an unshakeable melancholy that permeated my very existence. I’m not one to do that; I just felt like something dark had sunk into me and followed me home from the Lodge. I finally lit some shadow and went outside into the sunshine and felt better.

Now, I’m a firm believer that the Lodge is haunted. I’m the type who has to research and find out the real story. What is the entity haunting the Lodge? I don’t personally believe that it is Rebecca. But it is something….

The History and Possible Reasons Behind the Haunting

There are no historical records of a Rebecca Potter in the area. When searching for historical evidence of Rebecca’s existence, I came up empty handed, as have many others. No Rebecca Potter was reported living here, or reported missing, and newspapers do not mention a murder of a chambermaid in the early half of the twentieth in Cloudcroft. Furthermore, a man named Paul Hernandez who worked at the Lodge for 61 years did not know about Rebecca and did not feel the Lodge was haunted. Her murder would have happened during or right before his tenure at the Lodge, so he of all people should have known about her.

There was a horrible murder that happened in Cloudcroft in 1920. Mrs. Jack Durham, Tom Martin, and Mrs. Durham’s two children, aged 6 months and 3 years, were murdered by her lumberjack husband, Jack Durham. Durham did this after he learned she had been sleeping with Tom Martin, his manager. The husband also shot himself but survived with his nose and cheek bones shattered. So the legend of Rebecca may have been a sexy distortion of a truly horrible case of familicide.

A paranormal investigator named Cody Polston debunks a lot of ghost stories. He notes that the tale of Rebecca has changed over time, suggesting myth building is at play. For instance, people originally said that Rebecca was buried in the floor of the Red Dog Saloon, but later they claimed she was buried on the grounds of the Lodge, most likely the golf course. Polston thinks this is due to the fact Margaret Pointer’s remains were found near the Lodge (on the highway to Sunspot), scattered by wildlife through the woods, after she had been missing from Alamogordo for two decades. People became more open to the idea of a woman being buried in the thick woods of the Cloudcroft area as a result.

Even owners of the Lodge have admitted there is something there. When Jerry Sanders bought the Lodge in 1984, he said that there is definitely a presence. But he did not think Rebecca even existed. He admits he perpetuated the myth of Rebecca because it is the ghost story he “inherited.”

The Lodge has capitalized on the legend of Rebecca and built its identity around it. Polston thinks that that primes people for paranormal experiences when they stay here. While that could be true, it does not necessarily mean that the Lodge isn’t haunted. It’s just not haunted by Rebecca Potter.

So why is this place so haunted? What happened here to trap the spirit of at least one entity that is very active? I think a dig into the history of the Lodge provides a vital clue.

The Lodge that stands in Cloudcroft today is not even the original lodge. The original one was built by the Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway in 1899, completed in 1901. While it was built to host railroad workers and lumberjacks, it became a favorite for guests as well.

The Original Lodge as it looked in 1900-1901

By 1908, the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad System acquired it and advertised it for the resort crowd. For just $3 a night or $12.50 per week, it was a place at the end of the rail line for people to stay and enjoy burro trips, dancing, bowling, golf, tennis, and fine dining in the cool of the mountains. The Lodge was decorated similarly to how it is today, with rich upholstery, varnished wood, crackling fireplaces and turn-of-the-century lavishness.

June 13, 1909, a horrible fire destroyed the Lodge. The source was a malfunctioning kitchen flue. The guests escaped unscathed, but their belongings were devoured. Cloudcroft depended on the tourism the Lodge brought and worried their town might die with the Lodge gone.

The El Paso and Southwestern Railroad System was not into the idea of investing in another Lodge. But either Dr. H.E. Stephenson OR Dr. Branch Craige (sources vary) convinced them it would be a great convalescent home for sick children, suffering in the heat of the valley below. The residents of Cloudcroft also convinced them it was important for tourism.

Hence, construction on a new Lodge began in 1910 and was completed in 1911. This is the current structure, which stands at 601 Corona Place. An adjacent structure was built and was called the Woodland Lodge. The Woodland Lodge housed the Sick Baby Sanitorium. This sanatorium treated children suffering from tuberculosis, flu, and other illnesses. Many made miraculous recoveries, but many did not. It is unknown exactly how many children died there. Photos of some of the pediatric patients and their nurses adorn the walls of the Lodge now. The center closed in 1934 with the invention of improved TB treatments, and the sanitorium was subsequently torn down.

Also during the 1930s, gambling became a big source of income for the Lodge as vacationing dwindled. The owner, William Tooley, would even slip a man called “Dixie” some money so that he could stimulate the gambling in the Lodge. Prohibition-era bootlegging was said to have occurred here, as well. Who knows the lechery and violence that may have go on as a result?

Over the years since, countless people have stayed at the Lodge or worked there. They have all brought their own energy and demons with them, the residue of which often lingers behind in hotels in my experience. The Lodge has also changed hands many times. It was even operated by Carlton Hilton in the 30s!

The gambling and the hotel aspect of the Lodge may have led to its current status as a haunted place. However, it is unknown how many children died here. Any place that held a lot of suffering and death seems to acquire a strange energy and sometimes even demonic presences. I know what I felt in that bathroom that night was demonic!

The history of this place seems to definitely explain why the Lodge is the way it is! Nevertheless, it is a truly beautiful place, in a truly beautiful part of New Mexico.