The Presence of the Past Lives On

To many people, the mention of ghosts conjures up images of eerie white figures and haunting, howling cries in the dark of night. However, according to sightings at members of National Trust Historic Hotels of America, paranormal guests have a uniquely human form. Spirits from the past can even exude an amusing or strangely comforting presence to those that they visit. Like the hotels they call home, apparitions come in all shapes and sizes and each has their own interesting tale to tell – from unrequited love to untimely death or unfinished business. What they seem to share is the ability to return to a place of importance to them.
Ghosts of the Round Table
The Algonquin in New York City was - and may still be - a favorite "haunt" of celebrated wit Dorothy Parker and her group of literary friends, including Robert Benchley and Zelda & Scott Fitzgerald. Many guests over the years have sworn they have seen the ghosts of the Round Table. Given the fact that the members of the elite society were famous for imbibing, it is possible that their modern day summoners partake as well! Just in case, the staff of the hotel practices their own unique "exorcism" each New Year's Eve. At midnight, the kitchen crew enters the hotel lobby banging pots and pans to frighten off the spirits. Considering the reputation of the "ghosts" in question, many believe they are heartily entertained, rather than alarmed, by the spectacle.


Al Capone Strikes Again?
Under the cover of darkness, the notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone would boat down the Fox River and dock at the Hotel Baker in St. Charles, Ill., for an evening of poker playing with some of his cronies. Apparently his presence is still being felt at the hotel. Last April, a woman and her husband were driving by when she suddenly felt compelled to go inside and spend the night. Standing on the balcony of the Rainbow Room, she witnessed a tall, skinny man dressed in black slowly dancing across the ballroom floor. After visiting the basement, the scene of other sightings, she proclaimed, "He's here now. He lives here." The following evening, she witnessed the same apparition drifting along the path in the Rose Garden. With staff accompanying her, she followed the pathway to the Boathouse where she described in vivid detail the slender man's demise at the hands of two thugs who drowned him in the Fox River. Was the mournful man in black the hapless witness to a Capone crime and a subsequent victim or was he himself "in over his head" with the Capone gang?


Knock Three Times
Milwaukee's Pfister Hotel often hosts visiting dignitaries, celebrities and sports figures. Perhaps it is also home to an otherworldly fan of the Milwaukee Brewers. According to the August 20, 2001, issue of Sports Illustrated, Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Adrian Beltre had an otherworldly "run-in" at the hotel. After the Dodgers checked into the hotel late on the night of July 23, Beltre heard knocking noises on his door and in the hallway. The air conditioning in his room suddenly clicked off and on, then off and on again. The television did the same-off then on. He also heard pounding noises coming from the other side of his headboard like a man beating an open hand against the wood. All this activity lasted for three nights and left Beltre a bit unnerved. He denied his teammates ribbing about taking a baseball bat to bed with him, but responded, "No, but I should have… three nights there and I slept a total of two hours."


Comforting Guests
At The Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa in Asheville, N.C., little is known about a young woman dressed in pink who fell to her death in the Palm Court atrium around 1920. However, the mysterious "Pink Lady" has become a widely known celebrity at the hotel. Several years ago, Kathy J. Urbin of Blountville, Tenn., traveled to the Grove Park Inn in January 1998 with her husband and two teenage daughters She was awakened about midnight by what she thought were guests checking into the adjoining room and comforted herself by holding her husband's hand. "Implausibly, I realized that the hand I was holding was on my left side and that my husband was lying on my right side." Thinking that one of her daughters had been startled, Urbin turned to the left expecting to find one of the girls. To her complete surprise, no one was there, and, instantly, the experience of holding a warm hand was gone. Feeling confused by the experience, Urbin mentioned it to a front desk clerk and was told that no one was staying in the room adjoining hers. The clerk referred her to a book about the history of the hotel. After reading the book, Urbin concluded that she "must have held the hand of the Pink Lady herself!"


It appears that the resident ghost at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, N.C. is fixated on a particular guestroom. Dr. William P. Jacocks, a physician with the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, retired to Chapel Hill and lived at the inn from 1948 until his death in 1965. A kind and gentle man, he had a fun-loving sense of humor and seems to enjoy teasing guests who stay in his room on the third floor by locking them out occasionally. Last fall, a couple returned to the room to find that their electronic keys wouldn't work. Hotel maintenance workers, unable to unlock the door, had to climb a ladder and crawl through the window. Once, the room's door had to be taken off its hinges because it could not be unlocked.


Call Me
The phone at the front desk of the Paso Robles Inn in Paso Robles, CA., seems to receive mysterious calls from Room 1007 on a regular basis. At first, the inn's management wrote the calls off to a glitch in the phone system. Mike Childs, head of maintenance at the inn, even went to the room to inspect the phone line. While standing in the room, he witnessed the phone light up and call the front desk. When he tried calling the desk himself, the phone, which has two lines, cut him off and called the front desk on the second line. The spirit took matters into its own hands one night and placed a call to 911. When police arrived, they found the room unoccupied. General Manager Paul Wallace attributes the call to a story in a 1940 newspaper article. On December 19, 1940, night clerk J.H. Emsley discovered a fire on the second floor of the hotel. Emsley rushed downstairs, sounded the alarm and then died of a heart attack on the spot. Thanks to Emsley's action, all of the hotel's guests were evacuated, but Wallace thinks the ghostly clerk doesn't know that.


Recently, The Brown Palace Hotel in Denver embarked on an extensive refurbishment of its top two floors. From 1937 to 1986, permanent guests lived in the twenty apartments on these floors. Coincidentally, during the renovation, Julia Kanellos, the hotel's historian, conducted a series of historical tours highlighting the stories of some of those permanent residents. One tale was about Mrs. Louise Crawford Hill who ruled Denver society and lived in room 904 for fifteen years (1940-1955). Soon after the stories about her life and heartbreak over a lost love were recounted on the tours, the hotel's main switchboard began receiving calls from room 904. When the hotel operator answered, there was nothing but static on the line. This was a great mystery because the room was stripped of furniture, lights, wallpaper, carpet and telephones due to the renovation. Kanellos eliminated Mrs. Hill's saga from the tour and the telephone calls from room 904 ceased.


Culinary Capers
Considering its location, one might imagine that the Furnace Creek Inn in Death Valley National Park, Calif., might be haunted by wayward '49ers, prospectors who became lost in the region. However, the only "haunting" taking place in this historic inn is by a friendly phantom, the spirit of Chef James Marquez. From 1959 until 1973, Chef Marquez worked at the Furnace Creek Inn. Illness forced his resignation in 1973, just three years before he died. Since then, doors at the inn, particularly in the kitchen and dining room, have mysteriously opened and closed on quiet mornings with no wind for miles. Employees have reported hearing noises from the dining room in the middle of the nights, and, legend has it that the kitchen has been mysteriously rearranged. Could it be that from time to time, the spirit of Chef Marquez returns to his happy hideaway in Death Valley?


Located on scenic Lake George, it is no wonder past guests keep wanting to return to the beauty of The Sagamore in Bolton Landing, N.Y. The Trillium, the resort's fine dining restaurant, is regularly visited by the image of a couple who were among the hotel's first guests in the 1880s. They descend from the second floor and take a seat in the restaurant's reception room before departing. Mr. Brown's, another of the resort's dining outlets, was visited by an apparition of a tall woman dressed in long, white evening attire with flowing sandy blond hair. She spoke to a prep cook, then proceeded to walk toward him, then through him and disappeared. The cook packed his things, quit his job and never returned to the resort.


The Mendocino Hotel & Garden Suites in Mendocino, Calif., opened in 1878 as the Temperance House and was a sanctuary in a lively logging town of saloons and pool halls. The hotel's history did not always remain so pristine. For a number of years, the hotel was a bordello. The aura of this era can still be felt in the hotel. A Victorian woman haunts tables 6 and 8 in the restaurant, where she appears in the mirror. She is known to visit guestrooms and to be playful with the housekeepers.


Local Lore
The Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Mass., is surrounded by historic buildings, many of them built by the Salem sea captains who founded the Salem Marine Society in 1766. The society's building was razed for the construction of the Hawthorne Hotel in the 1920s. Some wonder if the spirits of these dynamic seafarers still return to the site they knew so well. Employees and guests alike have witnessed the large ship's wheel, used in the nautical décor of the Main Brace Restaurant, turning back and forth as though following a ghostly course even though no one was near. Those who stopped the wheel found that it immediately resumed its motion. At least one houseman working in the Lower Deck meeting room has refused to work nights after several instances in which his room setups were rearranged the opposite direction.


Tradition holds that during the Civil War, a Union officer, Captain John Stoves, was captured near the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon, Virginia, then a girl's finishing school. He was tenderly nursed by a "Martha girl" who is known only as Beth. Late one evening, his strength ebbed and he called out "Play something, Beth, I'm going." She picked up her violin and played a sweet southern melody that had often comforted him during his illness. Shortly after Stoves' death, Beth contracted typhoid fever and died. The two are now united in death in Abingdon's Green Springs Cemetery. On nights of the full moon, it is said that Beth's haunting violin melodies can be heard on the third floor.


Paranormal Professionals
The Gulfstream Hotel in Lake Worth, Fla., has been a local landmark on Florida's Intracoastal Waterway since 1928. A three-year renovation, completed in 1999, returned the hotel to the style and atmosphere of its early years - but without one of its early guests. One night in 1999, after a night watchman had turned off the lights and television in an empty room for the third time, he felt a weight descend upon him. The room was rumored to have been used by a bride who met an untimely death on her wedding night. Shortly after the hotel reopened, the new owners decided to exorcise the ghost. The local Episcopal minister performed the service, but a Catholic Priest was asked to attend for good measure. Lights occasionally flicker and a chill has been known to pass through the hall, but no one has been "weighed" down since.


It is said that after the skeleton frame of The Crescent Hotel and Spa in Eureka Springs, Ark., had been constructed in the 1880s, one of the Irish stone masons plunged to his death in what is now room 218. This room proves to be the most spiritually active room in the hotel and has attracted television film crews for decades because of the quantity and quality of the sightings reported. Throughout the history of the hotel, employees have referred to this entity at "Michael," a classified poltergeist due to the nature of the unexplained activity. Guests have witnessed hands coming out of the bathroom mirror, cries of a falling man in the ceiling, the door opening then slamming shut, unable to be opened again. This activity had drawn guests to specifically request room 218 for the chance to experience something.


Widely known for boisterous Bourbon Street and the merriment of Mardi Gras, New Orleans is also home to a special mix of spirituality and superstition. Le Pavillon in New Orleans hired a paranormal research team to study the otherworldly visitors at the hotel. The group of psychics, parapsychologists and paranormal investigators identified the overwhelming aura of a frightened and confused teenaged girl. They believe that she lived during the 1840s and is possibly named Eva, Ava or Ada. It appears that she was preparing to embark on a ship when she was struck by a carriage and died from the resulting internal injuries. Their report also indicates the presence of a young aristocratic couple from the 1920s and a dark-suited man from the same era who is reputed to play pranks on the hotel cleaning crew.


Owners Return
Many hotel owners invest more of themselves in their property than just money. According to numerous sightings at The Brown in Louisville, Kentucky, the ghost of founder J. Graham Brown still inhabits the premises. Several staff members have entered an empty elevator in the wee hours of the morning to find the button to their desired floor already pushed. A simple, "Thank you, Mr. Brown. Have a good evening." is all that is required. One longtime employee has repeatedly seen the image of Mr. Brown, outfitted in 20s period attire and bearing a remarkable resemblance to his statue in front of the hotel, gazing out of a window.


Rosario Resort on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands, Wash., was built in 1909 as a private residence. In 1932, Donald Rheem, a California industrialist, purchased the home. Rheem's wife, Alice, created a stir among curious Orcas Islanders. Mrs. Rheem's flamboyant lifestyle included unusual appearances in the village of Eastsound wearing a flaming red nightgown, playing a few hands of cards with the "local boys" at the general store and hopping back on her Harley-Davidson motorcycle to return home. Through the years, employees and guests staying at the mansion have reported bizarre incidents, seen strange shapes and heard the mysterious footsteps of a woman walking in high heels. Perhaps, Mrs. Rheem is continuing her eccentric lifestyle at the mansion.


Guests at Georgia's Jekyll Island Club Hotel in Jekyll Island, Ga., have been surprised to find their coffee sipped and morning paper read. It certainly isn't due to a lack of service or hospitality. Each morning at this exclusive hunt club, Samuel Spencer, president of the Southern Railroad Company, insisted the Wall Street Journal be delivered to his room. For years, it was his ritual to drink a cup of coffee while scanning the paper. In 1906, he was killed instantly in a train accident. For years, club members and hotel guests who occupied Spencer's room have found copies of their newspaper disturbed, moved or folded in their absence. Coffee cups have been mysteriously poured or "sipped on" when guests returned from the shower or a brief outing.

Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The HHA has identified more than 170 hotels that have faithfully maintained their historic integrity, architecture and ambience. To be selected for this prestigious program, a hotel must be at least 50 years old, listed in or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places or recognized as having historic significance. A directory of member hotels can be purchased for $3.50 by sending a check to Historic Hotels of America, P.O. Box 320, Washington, D.C. 20055-0320. Rooms at any of the member hotels can be reserved by calling 800-678-8946. When reservations are made through this number, a portion of the cost is returned to the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Looking for more? Read the Historic Hotels of Americia Tales of the Unexplained.