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While the owners of some haunted hotels disbelieve the stories people tell, the owners of the Ancient City Inn firmly believe their little inn is haunted by several spirits. They believe the resident spirit is Charles Sequi, the original owner of the inn, and his wife Maude. The current owners also believe that their daughter and her cat haunt the inn and offer haunted tours of the inn too.

Martha Lee, the daughter of the original owners, loved her former home so much that she continued living there for years after her parents passed away. To pass the time and curb the loneliness that she sometimes felt, she brought home a cat that she named Toby. One of the rooms in the inn now bare her name, and many guests report feeling a cat jump on the bed in the middle of the night. Some even felt the cat kneading them with its claws or heard loud purring noises coming from the bottom of the bed.

Though Martha Lee never married, legend says that she once fell in love with a man who stayed at the inn when she and her mother used it as a boarding house. When Maude found them together, she immediately threw the man out. Martha Lee was so heartbroken that she never married or took a lover again. Workers often hear the sounds of the bed springs in the room bouncing and moving, which they believe is proof that Martha Lee met up with her former love in the afterlife. Those who stay at the Ancient City Inn might just receive a visit from a ghostly cat or hear two former lovers coming together again.

The Haunted Casa Monica Hotel in St Augustine, FL

The Casa Monica Hotel has a reputation as the most haunted place in St. Augustine and is often called the most haunted hotel in Florida.

Two of the most haunted rooms in the hotel are room 411 and room 511, which is directly above the former room. Hotel workers see and experience a lot in a given day, but at the Casa Monica Hotel, workers experience more than most. A guest checked into the hotel one day but never came down the next morning or checked out. Workers found his limp and lifeless body hanging from the ceiling in room 511. Guests now report feeling icy winds moving through the room, finding cold spots in certain places and hearing footsteps when they were the only ones in the room. Guests staying in room 411 sometimes see ghostly apparitions of men in old-fashioned clothing standing in the room. The men disappear from view within seconds.

Though the owners and management of the hotel refuse to acknowledge any ghostly presences in the hotel, housekeepers and other workers have plenty of stories. Many despise cleaning the fourth floor because of the things they see and hear. Dozens of maids have reported hearing kids running, playing and laughing in the hallway when cleaning rooms, but when they opened the door to talk to them, the hallway was empty. Others heard radios and alarm clocks come on in empty rooms and sinks turn on inside empty rooms. The stories and experiences are so common that the housekeeping department now allows maids to work together to clean rooms.

One young woman hired as a housekeeper heard the stories but ignored them until she had a peculiar experience of her own. While working on the fourth floor, she knocked on a door to alert guests of her presence and heard a voice beckoning her from inside the room. When she walked inside, she found the room empty of any living people.

There are also stories told of ghostly apparitions dressed in 1920s clothing spotted in various places around the hotel. Some believe that these ghosts date back to the heyday of the Casa Monica. Several guests spotted a woman in an elegant white dress, and others saw men in morning coats or dapper suits wandering the halls. Though the Casa Monica Hotel went through a major renovation in the 1990s, the ghosts of former guests continue visiting the old hotel year after year.

Haunted Rooms in the Casa Monica Hotel

• Room 511 is where a man checked in but was found hanging the next day. The room is said to have icy breezes and cold spots. Sometimes footsteps are heard in the room.
• Room 411 have reportings of apparitions of a man in old fashioned clothes.
• Ghosts in the hallways of the haunted Casa Monica Hotel have been reported. A woman and men dressed in garb from the 20s have been reported on occasion.

Tips for your stay at the Haunted Casa Monica Hotel

Be careful who you ask. The management is said to frown on employees discussing the ghosts of the hotel. However, if you ask the workers, you might get a great story or two. Use your charm if you’re going to ask anyone at the desk and it’s a good idea to wait until the later hours when you ask because fewer big whigs are around to hush anyone up. And of course, respect hotel guests if you’re going to try any ghost hunting.

The Haunted Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida

Situated just three miles west of Miami, Florida is the tropical and picturesque city of Coral Gables. The hotel was designed as part of the City Beautiful Movement of the early twentieth century that sought to increase the art, splendor, beauty, and charm of the area in various outlets. One such product was the Biltmore Hotel, but this aesthetically beautiful hotel has also become known for its hauntings and paranormal activity.

The Biltmore Hotel was constructed in 1926 by a young man named George Merrick who was also the key founder of the city of Coral Gables. The four hundred room multi-story hotel had ballrooms, tennis courts, country club attachment, custom golf course, and a twenty-three hundred square foot swimming pool which at the time was the largest swimming pool in the entire world. Fashion showcases, aquatic pool shows, and the surrounding luxury of the hotel drew in royalty from Europe, Hollywood celebrities, infamous gangsters, and even future U.S. Presidents.

A Brief History of the Biltmore Hotel

During the onset of World War II, the hotel was seized and operations temporarily suspended as it turned into a makeshift Army hospital. At any given time, close to twelve hundred wounded soldiers were housed there. Once the war ended, the hotel was further converted into a VA hospital until 1968 when it closed down completely. Vandals and thrillseekers began to enter the grounds at night when finally in 1992, the hotel was given new life and completely restored to glory and became fully operational. That’s when the paranormal stories began to emerge.

Ghosts of the Biltmore Hotel

One of the most sighted apparitions is the “Lady In White.” The legend of the Biltmore Hotel’s “Lady in White” is that her young child somehow climbed over a high balcony railing outside her room. Sadly she could not catch the child before they both fell to their deaths. Years later, her crying spirit can be seen floating around the 13th floor, clad in white. Sometimes her ghost is spotted on exterior hotel balconies.

Also on the 13th floor, Prohibition-era gangster Thomas “Fatty” Welch was shot to death in his room by a rival gangster in the 1920s. Over the years, guests and employees have reported odd chuckling sounds that emanate from nowhere. Other times, the lights in the rooms have turned on and off, and objects come up hidden. Some guests have reported seeing the reflection of a smiling man of portly size in the bathroom mirrors standing behind them, only to turn and see nobody there.

Another haunted floor is the seventh, which housed many of the dying patients before the hotel reopened. One of the more disturbing claims is that a former employee had seen severed limbs manifest through the walls. Another former employee claimed that even hardened security officers from the property couldn’t take much of the paranormal encounters on this floor and routinely quit right alongside a concierge who resigned as well. They claimed to see disembodied spirits, experience frequent cold spots, and the opening and closing of doors in empty rooms. At one point, hotel housekeepers routinely wore sage pinned to their lapels to ward off the numerous ghosts haunting the many floors of the Biltmore.

Despite all the activity in the hotel, the Biltmore stands as the prized hotel of the Coral Gables community. Just as lavish and grandiose as in the many decades before, this hotel is a once in a lifetime visit that’s well worth the trip for its history, beauty, and luxurious modern day amenities… And the ghosts of course.