Hotel Ghost

Ghost: Rebecca

Place: The Lodge at Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Deal: A local lumberjack was sweet on Rebecca, a chambermaid way back when, until he saw her canoodling with another gent. Soon, Rebecca had disappeared. But maybe not for good: mysterious flames roar in fireplaces, and objects that shouldn't move of their own accord find a way. Rebecca, is that you?



The Lodge takes its Rebecca legend seriously, with literature at the front desk and a rather startling Rebecca mannequin in the lobby. Sets the mood in this atmospheric mountain getaway, to spy the celebrity spirit as soon as you enter the hotel. Don't wink at me, don't wink at me...

Hotel Musings: Ghosts

No hotel is complete, I’ve always felt, without a Lady in White drifting through the upper floors. In fact, if I bought a hotel and it didn’t have a Lady in White, I’d hold interviews. Question 1: Can you wooooo outside the ballroom in the deepest night? Question 2: Will you gently pull covers off sleeping guests? Question 3: Is there some sordid romance involving you and a long-ago hotel owner we can print in the brochure? Consider yourself hired. When can you startle?

For musings on motel ghosts, visit MOTEL ME MORE!

Hotel Ghost

Place: St. James Hotel, Cimarron, New Mexico

Ghost: Irritable, "Yippee-Ki-Yay"-era poker winner

Deal: He won the poker hand. He got good and shot. He barely made it back to his room -- #18 -- and promptly expired. Now this vintage, velvet-and-wood-laden hotel, in memory of that long-ago guest who died during Cimarron's wilder, Westier days, keeps Room 18 locked. In fact, staff only enters to refill a glass with hooch (said hooch is frequently found drained).



I visited the St. James on a late fall day some years back. The shadows outside were long, the cottonwoods near the hotel deeply gold (and their leaves were especially clacky), and the upper hallways of the hotel dark and atmospheric. Room 18: locked. Good thing, too.

Hotel Ghost

Place: The Palace Hotel, Cripple Creek, Colorado

Ghost: Miss Kitty, wife of former owner; died 1908.

Deal: Miss Kitty likes everything to be real homey around the Palace. So homey she's constantly relighting candles, which past guests have understandably found unnerving.




Flickr image by foxypar4

"Certified Haunted"

At the close of the week I like to feature a particular hotel-dwelling phantom, such as the disgrunted maid or a guest who really, really hated the view. I'd read a bit about the 1891 Castle Inn in New Orleans, spun over to see what ghosties I could find lurking about the lobby and instead found it for sale.

What tickled me, in its otherwise very straightforward, all-business ad, were the words "Certified Haunted."

A definite selling point for somebody. But who did the certifying?

By the way, we'll call the the horse-carriage driver at the Castle Inn the Ghost of the Week. I'm hoping he'll decide to go with the hotel's new management.

Hotel Ghost

Place: The Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood

Ghost: Montgomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe, sundry superstars

Deal: Actor Monty Clift, alternately seen practicing his bugle for a role and running lines, is probably The Roosevelt's most famous supernatural sighting -- and most handsome.

Could Mr. Clift ever zoomed down Hollywood Boulevard in his youth and thought, "through myth, legend and word-of-mouth, I'll be tied to that beautiful building for many years to come?" Do any of us know the places that our names may be associated with in a hundred years time? I'd like to pick mine, but I think Dame Chance plays a larger role than we do.









Flickr image by kevindooley

America's Haunted Hotels

How we adore the week prior to Halloween. This is the week many major publications release a haunted hotels round-up. Always fun, always spooky, and there are usually a few surprises. The selections made by Forbes Traveler seem especially frightening, particularly the lovely Equinox Resort in Vermont.










Image: Equinox Resort

Knickerbocker, Atmospheric and Esoteric

Even when I make a brief mention of Hollywood's Knickerbocker Hotel, my day feels five times more interesting.

Hotel Ghost Friday

Place: The Landmark Inn, Marquette, Michigan

Ghost: Lovelorn librarian

Deal: Decades back, the town's book maven fell in love with a crew member from an iron ore ship. Ship returned to the lake and sank. Librarian's heart sank with it.

The hotel says she can be seen in the Lilac Room on the 6th Floor. Here's another lovely room in a lovely hotel. Atmospheric indeed, especially that oval mirror. Has anyone ever looked into an old oval mirror and not expected something else to look back?

Hotel Ghost

Place: The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Ghosts: Nurse, cleaning woman, man at bar...

Deal: Often billed as the most haunted hotel in America, the Crescent is reportedly thick with ectoplasmic experiences. Eyeball the nifty key below to get a better sense of the cast of characters you might meet roaming the atmospheric property.

I'm most charmed by the orange tabby called Morris. What does a phantom purr sound like, I wonder? And can you trip on a ghost if it is rolling around underfoot? Are there little felt cat toys in the afterlife? Questions...




Image: The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa

Letter from Father

Alysia,

Your recent ghost post got me thinking about hotel night auditors, a truly misunderstood group. I mean, who comes to work at 11PM and goes home to sleep at 7AM? No wonder they can be unfairly portrayed as a tad grumpy by fellow hotel employees.

However, they have more ghostly encounters than any other group of people in the world; after all, it is called the graveyard shift. Case in point: a friend of mine who worked the night audit at a Southwestern property was visited every Saturday at 2AM by a long-departed lady in white; she would quietly appear at the top of an abandoned staircase and then disappear.

I know this fellow and he is not prone to hallucinations. I believe that a hotel's supernatural beings do their hallway meandering in the early morning hours because some living guest has occupied their room for the night. Having worked as a hotel night auditor in my college days with only my NCR 4200 machine to talk to, I also had strange encounters, including a visitor from another world who came by to just wave hello.

Simply put, hotel night auditors and hotel ghosts are certainly two misunderstood groups who are simply looking to find a "soul" mate between 11PM and 7AM.

And next time you are in a hotel and cannot sleep at 2AM, come on down and visit with the night auditor. They only want someone to have a spirited conversation with. Grumpy? Maybe a bit but with good reason. It's a long night...

Love,
Father

(More about Father: In hotel business for several decades. Likes: bell carts with unsqueaky wheels, un-yell-y guests, a full house on a weeknight. Dislikes: waiters who say "no problem" when a customer thanks them for delivering a meal, walking a guest, blackout drapes.)

Hotel Ghost

Place: Hotel Monte Vista, Flagstaff, Arizona

Ghost: Bellboy

Deal: Knocking on doors, as living bellboys do, but not delivering luggage or messages, as living bellboys do. Rather, the bellboy from beyond disappears, perhaps to go roll a bellcart through some endless hallway to the last room at the end of eternity. Room 898479875, Room 898479876, Room 898479877...
















Image: don m. peavey