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The Loews Don CeSar hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida is sometimes called the Pink Palace, but it is also known as the most haunted hotel in the Tampa Bay area. Stories say that the broken-hearted man who originally built the hotel, Thomas Rowe, has never left the premises although he died in 1940. In fact, some have even seen him wandering the gardens with the dark-haired beauty Lucinda, the Spanish opera singer Rowe loved and lost in Europe. Others report being greeted in the lobby by a smiling man in a Panama hat only to have the figure fade into nothingness. Rowe’s ghost has also been spotted on the fifth floor where he once lived.

Rowe and Lucinda fell in love when he was a student in London, but due to religious differences, Lucinda’s parents whisked her back home to Spain to put an end to the relationship. Every letter he wrote her was returned to him unopened by her parents. The only message from her he ever received was accompanied by the news of her untimely death. It was said that Lucinda had died of a broken heart, but she was able to send him a final message promising that she would wait for him forever.

A broken man himself, Rowe went to America and married a woman in Virginia, but he did not love her. Eventually, he moved to Florida alone and built the Don CeSar.

The hotel itself is a stunning piece of architecture, a striking pink fairy-tale confection, and it may have been in memory of the lost Lucinda’s homeland and career that Rowe chose the influence of Mediterranean and Moorish architecture and named the hotel after a Spanish character in the opera “Maritana.” As part of the hotel’s original design, Rowe also included a replica of the fountain at which he and Lucinda were supposed to meet for their elopement. In the hotel’s heyday, it hosted the famous and infamous including F. Scott Fitzgerald, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Al Capone.

Thomas Rowe and his beloved Lucinda are not the only ghosts who haunt the hotel. Rowe died before making arrangements to leave the hotel to his staff as he intended, so it passed to his estranged wife who had little interest in its operations. The hotel failed and became a VA hospital from the 1940s until 1973 when it was turned back into a hotel. Sadly, the fountain had already been destroyed.

However, by the time the hotel reopened to guests, it had acquired some additional specters. The second and sixth floors are also said to be haunted, and some guests report seeing a nurse wandering the halls. She is also sometimes seen near the kitchens that were formerly a hospital morgue. Guests also say they have the unsettling feeling of being watched or that someone has come into the room with them. Lights blink on and off without explanation, and people open doors to repeated knocking to find no one on the other side – or no one who is alive.

Guests have also reported sightings of various other apparitions as well as irregular behavior from the elevator. One woman says she woke in the night to see a man standing at the foot of her bed. At the time, she thought someone had mistakenly wandered into her room, and the man went away. Only later did she learn that the hotel was haunted and realize that her late-night visitor had been a dead man.

However, of all the ghosts that haunt the Loews Don CeSar Hotel, it is the lovers Thomas Rowe and Lucinda that the hotel belongs to. Though cruelly separated in life, they will walk the halls of the Pink Palace together for eternity.

Jamestown, California is a diminutive former California Gold Rush town that sits an hour east of Stockton. With a scant population that hovers a little over 3,400 people, Jamestown is not the busiest of California’s hot spots. However, situated just left to the center of town is the 1859 National Hotel and Restaurant. Considered to be the most frequented of all the hotels in the Jamestown area, the National is a treasured throwback of old-world California charm that can provide travelers with a timeless and elegant experience after a long day of shopping or wine tasting. The efforts to provide guests with a cozy stay is so ingrained into the very fabric of the National, that the ghostly attention of a spirit named Flora is there to make sure your stay is as memorable as possible.

Is The 1859 Historic National Hotel Haunted?

The National Hotel and Restaurant was built back in 1859 by a husband and wife proprietor pair named Heinrich and Hannah Neilson. They looked to capitalize on the Gold Rush era boom by constructing both a hotel and restaurant that would serve the constant wave of would-be prospectors. The scant few establishments that were in Jamestown during this time were meager temporary wood structures or in some cases under large tents. The hotel actually survived two dangerous fires within a span of twenty-six years in 1901 and 1927. With the town’s far-out location and reputation for gold in the area, this briefly became a speakeasy during Prohibition where gambling machines and prostitution along with alcohol were free-flowing until the government stepped in. A full-on restoration project at the hotel began in 1974 and is continuing in some capacity to this very day, but despite any repairs that haven’t stopped the tourists from coming and it certainly hasn’t stopped the ghost stories.

Flora is the name of the spirit that haunts the National Hotel and Restaurant and details of her origin are blended both from historical record and unforeseen tragedy. In 1859, Flora had embarked on a train journey from the East Coast out to San Francisco to stay with family. At some point during her journey on the train, Flora met a young attorney named Henry who was based out of San Francisco. It was love at first sight as this budding attorney and fetching girl of 19 connected with one another. In a short time after meeting, Henry proposed to Flora and she graciously accepted. The only issue with their soon to be marriage was the fact that her relatives had opposed her betrothal. However, Flora and Henry agreed to get married in Jamestown and had taken to staying at the brand new National Hotel. Flora promised her relatives in San Francisco that she was returning to the East Coast, when in fact she planned to meet Henry at the National.

Upon arriving before Christmas, they each had their own rooms booked at the National and had spent the majority of their time planning a very simple Christmas wedding. Flora acquired a beautiful and tailored lace wedding gown that she was to wear on the special day. Details are scarce, but before the wedding ceremony could ever take place at Christmas, a rowdy and drunk prospector had entered the National and for whatever reason shot Henry as he was descending the stairs to meet Flora. He died in Flora’s arms, at the foot of the staircase, both of them embracing in his freshly spilled blood. The shooter was never arrested or found, needless to say, Flora was struck hard with melancholia and she retreated to her room. For days she didn’t come down until the hotel staff checked on her New Years’ Eve 1859 and found her dressed in the unused wedding dress in a simple chair facing the window; she had truly died from a broken heart.

The Ghost of the National Hotel

All these years later, visitors to the National have obliged the in-room guestbooks by filing out in detail their experiences with Flora’s spirit. Activity is innocuous at best as lights turn on and off, doors gently open and close, and in some instances, traveler suitcases are mysteriously moved about. Throughout the hotel and especially in the adjoining restaurant, hotel staff has spoken of the lights flipping on and off as well as the pots and pans in the kitchen being tipped off counters or spoons being yanked about by an unseen force. Still, with the in-room guestbooks, visitors have remarked about experiences of being flushed with a guest of icy cold air in an otherwise warmed room. Some have claimed to see the ghostly visage of a young woman dressed in white who is seen smiling back at them before mysteriously disappearing.

Paranormal theorists seem to agree that judging from all of Flora’s innocent antics and given the nature of her untimely death that she is totally benevolent. The employees at the National Hotel and Restaurant seem to agree and have gone so far as telling those that have seen her smiling spirit about, to simply smile back and say hello. Flora’s young life may have ended in undue tragedy, but the fact that her spirit is living on to serve as a comfort to visiting guests is supernaturally admirable.