I Went to a Haunted Spa for Literary Reasons | Mirbeau, Beacon - Where Zelda Fitzgerald Once Wandered

Explore Zelda Fitzgerald’s stay at Craig House, the former Hudson Valley asylum now known as Mirbeau Inn & Spa, through letters, literary history, and haunting atmosphere.

This past weekend, I attended a spa that used to be an insane asylum…

It felt a little weird at first, but I’d done my research. Not all, but most of the patients were “unruly” young women, and I felt it was my duty to pay a visit to any restless souls who deserved more light in their lives — spa or no spa. There are tons of stories from locals who worked at the facility (pre-spa), replete with a star-studded list of patients (Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, Rosemary Kennedy… to name a few), and the main house is undeniably haunted.

Mirbeau c. 2026 (formerly The Craig House 1915-1999)

My primary pull was to spend a little time where Zelda Fitzgerald once wandered. I read all of the letters she had written to F Scott Fitzgerald during her stay here and let me just say… some of her passages are absolutely breathtaking. I’ve pulled a few highlights that capture the ambiance as well as one excerpt that is deeply deserving of more attention.

Zelda resided here in 1934, from March to May, having suffered several breakdowns by this point. One of her diagnoses… ambition. When she arrived, she was especially eager to receive her oil paints, describing the landscape:

“There are so many winter trees exhibiting irresistible intricacies, and there are many neo-classic columns, and there are gracious expanses of snow and the brooding quality of a gray and heavy sky, all of which make me want terribly to paint.”

She was highly anxious about the financial strain of her stay at Craig House, but also entirely smitten with and inspired by her surroundings, describing herself as “like Faust in his den, or an alchemist” looking out upon the sky from “the nicest room” she’d ever had.

She describes her room and the grounds in delicious detail:

“It’s so pretty here. The ground is shivering with snow-drops and gentians. I suppose you wouldn't like to rest, but I wish you could for a while in the cool apple-green of my room. The curtains are like those in John Bishop’s poem to Elspeth and beyond the lawn never ends. Of course, you can walk to where young men in bear-cat roadsters are speeding to whatever Geneva Mitchell’s dominate the day — but mostly we walk the other way where tumbling villages prop themselves on the beams of the afternoon sun. We have tea, and many such functions to fulfill. It’s an awfully nice place.”

I believe the poem she refers to was published in 1916 by John Peale Bishop, an old friend of Scott’s from Princeton (as well as the inspo for Thomas D’Invilliers in This Side of Paradise). The Elspeth poems appear in a section entitled “songs to forget I am a mortal,” which F Scott Fitzgerald described as “rotten.”

Walking along the property reveals a pristinely manicured lawn and imitation of Monet’s gardens. I’ve been to Monet’s gardens, which are stunning, in Giverny and can say that the landscape feels like a condensed interpretation of Monet’s more lush and expansive crops. They have created excellent viewpoints from different angles across the property, which I think capture the essence of the beauty Zelda felt from her window.

“Please don’t be alarmed if I don’t write; there is much outside to look at, and my room inside reflects the softness of new greens and harbors the squares of mountain sun —”

But the most beautiful passage arrived in a letter dated April 26, 1934, when she (forever Scott’s champion) compares her husband to a swan to remind him of resilience:

“I can carry most of contemporary literary opinion, liquidated, in the hollow of my hand—and when I do, I see the swan floating on it and—I find it to be you and you only. But, Swan, float lightly because you are a swan, because by the exquisite curve of your neck the gods gave you some special favor, and even though you fractured it running against some man-made bridge, it healed and you sailed onward. Forget the past— what you can of it, and turn about and swim back home to me, to your haven for ever and ever—even though it may seem a dark cave at times and lit with torches of fury; it is the best refuge for you—turn gently in the waters through which you move and sail back.”

So here’s to resilience, and love, and a spa day in the company of lingering spirits.

P.S. I didn’t ask the staff about recent hauntings (next time!), but I can attest that while the spa is in a separate building and feels fine, the main building indeed has an eerie feeling about it. A chill, one might say, is easy to come by. But this building also has the loveliness of old fixtures still contained within it, such as an old fireplace and this incredible organ. Happy reading!