Ringling College of Art and Design's Keating Hall has landed the No. 1 spot on a new national ranking of Florida's most documented haunted locations.

The 2026 HauntBound Index, first reported by Patch, placed the Sarasota dormitory above 281 other Florida sites. The Michigan-based haunted-travel site cataloged 6,041 locations across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., scoring each on the quantity, independence, persistence and documentary quality of published paranormal reports.

Keating Hall beat out some of the state's best-known spooky landmarks. The HauntBound Florida page called the result "the upset," noting that Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, home of the famous Robert the Doll, did not crack the evidence top ten.

The ranking rests on five original accounts documented across two decades, from 1990 to 2001, and retold in three later publications. HauntBound's methodology does not attempt to determine whether ghosts are real. The index, finalized as of Sept. 15, never counts a source that only establishes a building's history as evidence of haunting claims.

A building with many lives

The structure now called Keating Hall started as the Bay Haven Hotel, built in the mid-1920s in Spanish Mission Revival style by the Echols Construction Company. During the Florida land boom, the hotel drew wealthy guests. After the bust, the building fell into disrepair and reportedly became a site for gambling and prostitution.

John Ringling purchased the Bay Haven around 1931 and converted it into a women's dormitory and classroom space for the art school Dr. Ludd M. Spivey founded with Ringling's support. The building was later renamed Keating Hall in honor of a benefactor. It still houses students on its second and third floors, according to Ringling College's housing page.

The legend of Mary

The ghost tradition centers on a young woman called Mary, said to have died in the building's third-floor stairwell during the late 1920s or early 1930s. According to HauntBound's Keating Hall entry, most accounts describe her as about 18 or 19 years old and working in the hotel at the time.

Students over the decades have reported hearing sobs from the stairwell, smelling violet perfume, finding paintbrushes spinning in water cups and discovering belongings rearranged overnight.

No historical record has confirmed Mary's identity. HauntBound's entry notes that Ringling College spokeswoman Christine Meeker Lange and students searched college records without finding documentation of the death, according to a 2004 press account cited in the entry. The Travel Channel featured the location that same year, and author Greg Jenkins documented the legend in his 2007 book, "Florida's Ghostly Legends and Haunted Folklore: The Gulf Coast and Pensacola."

Don't knock on the door

HauntBound classifies Keating Hall as "exterior viewing only." The building is an active student residence, not a tourist attraction. Visitors should not attempt to enter.