The story
The Yankee Pedlar Inn opened in 1891 on Main Street in Torrington, Connecticut, as the Conley Inn, built by Irish immigrants Frank and Alice Conley whose portraits and story stayed with the house through its century of service as the town's hotel; renamed the Yankee Pedlar in mid-century, it kept its dark-wood lobby, ballroom and creaking floors largely intact. Its ghost lore made it nationally famous when director Ti West, struck by staff stories during a stay, shot his 2011 horror film The Innkeepers inside the working hotel. The telling long predates the film: staff and guests described Alice Conley's presence in her favourite rooms, figures in Victorian dress in the corridors, doors opening, knocks, phantom smells of pipe smoke and perfume, and unexplained voices in the ballroom and basement. The hotel has changed hands and closed for periods in recent years, so current operating status must be confirmed before publishing. These accounts should be presented as staff and guest telling — the inn's own century of stories, hedged as folklore.