The <a href="https://oban.com/">Oban Inn</a> is still operating as a spa and hotel/ resort. But, you won't see the old building. It was destroyed in a fire, as reported below.

I was staying at a hotel (not this one) which caught on fire. We had just fallen asleep and I don’t remember how late it was. We woke up because there was a lot of traffic in the hallways and I could hear people knocking on the doors. Firemen were telling people to get out. When I opened our door we were all ready packed up and mostly dressed.

It was pretty chaotic outside, fire trucks with a lot of lights in the dark. It was even raining which makes everything look so much brighter and darker. We could see smoke but not much fire. They said it was the restaurant attached to the hotel which had caught fire.

We waited around for awhile. The hotel manager talked to us, and mostly everyone I think. He said we would have our money refunded, but, though we tried several times, it never was. Still, no one died, including us. There was a print in our hotel room which I had noticed and really liked. I wish I had thought to grab that on our way out. Not that it was worth a lot, I just liked it and it would have been something to go along with the whole story.

It took us a lot of driving to find another hotel, in another town. We had no luck in the near by hotels. We ended up staying in Ottawa and asked if we could have a little extra time to sleep in. But, as it turned out, we were up fairly early.

This historic property not only has its fair share of ghost tales but also experienced a catastrophic event that some blame on paranormal activity. The property was built as a single-family home for a wealthy captain in 1824 and passed to his son upon his death. The son went on to turn the large home into a bread and breakfast in 1895 and for nearly 100 years it was one of the most popular hotels in the area. On a fateful Christmas Eve in 1992 that all changed. With 12 of the 16 guestrooms filled and nearly 200 people eating a Christmas feast in the dining room a fire broke out on the third floor. Everyone was safely escorted out of the building but due to the wind and severe cold, the property couldn’t be saved. Firefighters tried unsuccessfully to extinguish the flames but they quickly spread throughout the property as hundreds of guests watched as the hotel burned down.

The owner at the time quickly rebuilt the property in the same fashion and it operates as a hotel to this day. For that reason, it’s believed that the same ghosts that haunted the last property have decided to stick around as they are comfortable in their familiar surroundings. Guests of the hotel have complained about loud footsteps coming from the second floor believed to be the captain that originally built the place. The ghost of an old woman has been spotted on the property since the 1930s, aimlessly walking the halls. For this reason, the inn has become a regular stop on ghost walks within Niagara-on-the-Lake.