Haunted Hotels

Tis the season of the witch and love to get spooked from time to time and would like to stay in a haunted hotel or two this Halloween, then take at look at these ‘spooktacular’ hotels which are reputed to be haunted!

The Brocket Arms is a 14th-century country inn in Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire. The Brocket Arms was originally the monastic quarters for the Norman church until the Reformation. It was a stop off point for pilgrims on their way to St Albans Abbey. It is said to be haunted by a priest who was tried and hanged in the building. Others say it is of a monk who hanged himself at the inn.  Book Online

The Queen Anne Hotel is a hotel in San Francisco, on Sutter Street. The hotel is an historic 1890 Victorian mansion, in the namesake Queen Anne architectural style, and decorated in the painted lady style. It was originally a girl’s boarding school. It narrowly survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The hotel is a popular site for ghost hunting. The headmistress of the former finishing school, Mary Lake, is said to haunt her former office in Room 410. The hotel’s paranormal history was explored in an episode of the television show Haunted Hotels.  Book Online

The Driskill, a Romanesque-style building completed in 1886, is the oldest operating hotel in Austin, Texas, United States, and one of the best-known hotels in Texas generally. The Driskill was conceived and built by Col. Jesse Driskill, a cattleman who spent his fortune constructing “the finest hotel south of St. Louis”. It is also well known as one of the most haunted hotels in the United States, featuring a variety of alleged supernatural activity throughout the building, including the spirit of Colonel Driskill himself.  Book Online

The George Hotel, also known as the George Inn and now marketed as the Ramada Crawley Gatwick, is a hotel and former coaching inn on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England.  John George Haigh, a notorious serial killer in the 1940s known for his “acid bath” murders, stayed at the hotel on numerous occasions, and dined there on the day he killed one of his victims. The hotel is also reputedly haunted by the ghost of a nightwatchman, Mark Hurston (or Hewton) and other curious figures.  Book Online

The Miami Biltmore Hotel is a luxury hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. It was designed by Schultze and Weaver and was built in 1926 by John McEntee Bowman and George Merrick as part of the Biltmore hotel chain. When completed it became the tallest building in Florida at 315 feet (96m) holding the record until 1928 when the Dade County Courthouse was built. Some superstitious people claim this hotel to be haunted, most often by the spirit of Thomas Walsh.

The hotel was also a major setting for Ken Wiederhorn’s 1977 cult horror film Shock Waves  starring John Carradine and Peter Cushing. The film was shot at a time when the hotel was in a state of abandoned disrepair, and featured long camera shots and eerily shot angles.  Book Online

The Heathman Hotel, in Portland, Oregon, United States, was originally built as the New Heathman Hotel and opened in 1927. Rooms 703, 803 as well as 1003 of the famed Portland, Oregon Hotel always gets booked around Halloween, for good reason since they are reputed to be the most haunted rooms in the Heathman Hotel. Paranormal events have been regularly reported in all three rooms. Cold spots, inexplicable sounds and poltergeist activity have been reported by guests of the hotel. People who have spent a night in the rooms have said that they have seen a hazy face staring at them from the dark corners of the room.  Book Online

The Congress Plaza Hotel is located on South Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park in Chicago at 520 South Michigan Avenue opening for business in 1893. The Congress Hotel is known to many to be one of the most haunted places in Chicago and even in the US. You can find haunting tours going through the hotel daily. There have been a lot of reports of unexplained noises coming from the hotel ballroom. Upon inspection by guards or other members of staff, the room is completely empty and quiet. The hotel’s hallways are a constant source of reported activity. Appliances have been known to turn on and off by themselves. It has also been reported that the hotel’s previous owner, the notorious gangster Al Capone, has made the hotel his permanent residence after death.

Several guests have reported seeing a ghostly gloved hand sticking out of the wall, nicknamed ‘the hand of mystery’. The hand is supposedly that of a worker who mistakenly got behind a drywall during the hotel’s construction phase. A hobo is said to have been killed in the hotel many years ago. The staff calls him Peg Leg Johnny and his ghost has been sighted several times.  Book Online

The Le Pavillon Hotel is a luxury hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was originally named the Denechaud, then for generations was the De Soto Hotel. The hotel is believed to be haunted by a seven-year-old girl from the 18th century, named Mary Masters, who had lived in the row of houses which once stood where the hotel is now. She died due to cholera in 1791. Her apparition roams the halls.  Another little girl named Adda (also called Eva or Ava) is Le Pavilion’s most popular ghost.  Haunting the hotel’s main entrance and lobby, it is believed that the girl with brown eyes and brown hair was killed by a runaway carriage. She carries a clutch and wears a hat, shawl and long black skirt. People have seen her pacing in the lobby and she has been mistaken as a Mardi Gras celebrant. She has been reported to bump into people, say sorry and then suddenly vanish.

Visitors and staff of the hotel have reported seeing the ghost of a shoe-less male hippy with long hair who wears a vibrantly coloured shirt. He is said to play pranks on hotel guests by pulling their sheets, hiding room keys and shoes, as well as moving belongings of guests. One of the hotel’s many guests also reported waking up around 2:30 in the morning seeing an elderly woman in a black dress sitting on the side of his bed.

Le Pavillon is also the home of a ghost couple. The man having died suddenly after taking a long walk with his wife – his beloved grief stricken wife was to die shortly after. The happy couple are always seen together, holding hands while walking the hotel grounds. They are sometimes seen walking through doors and vanishing into elevators. The man has a dark moustache and dark hat and is always seen smoking a cigar. The dark haired woman is said to wear a long light blue dress and is always seen to carry a beaded purse.  Book Online