Haunted Hotels

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 Aaron Burr House, Sir

After killing Alexander Hamilton in an infamous pistol duel in 1804, Aaron Burr retreated to New Hope, where it is said that he stayed on the grounds of what is now called the Aaron Burr House Bed and Breakfast.

The Ghost of Aaron Burr, Sir

Witnesses report that the ghost of Aaron Burr has been seen roaming the house and peering around corners. Burr’s ghost appears more often on the second floor and the 2nd staircase. People have even reported the sensation of tugs on their arms or sleaves. Others have reported seeing Burr’s ghost in town always looking back over his shoulder as if he’s being hunted or followed.

Pardon me are you Aaron Burr’s ghost, sir?

Situated in the heart of Anchorage, Alaska is the Captain Cook Hotel. Standing in at rather impressive eighteen stories tall, this newly remade luxury hotel boasts over five hundred premium rooms along with ninety-six suites. The Captain Cook Hotel is listed with the National Trust for Historic Preservation as being registered as a Historic Hotel of America. Four-star dining, with every plush amenity known to the modern traveler, the Captain Cook Hotel is the epitome of class in Anchorage. It is also reputed as one of the most haunted locations in the city as well.

Is the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage Haunted?

In terms of history, the Captain Cook Hotel is relatively new and its grounds came from an unlikely catalyst. In 1964 a devastating earthquake of a 9.2 magnitude hit Anchorage and leveled nearly every building it could. Anxious to rebuild in the aftermath, a real estate developer named Walter Hickel was committed to building a luxury hotel to help bring tourists back to Anchorage. By the end of 1965 the majority of the hotel was built and opened for business with subsequent room towers within the next few years. Hickel named the hotel in honor of Captain James Cook whose travels often included the Alaska coastline. But what unexplained supernatural activities are haunting such a relatively new hotel and why?

The most frequently reported apparition at the Captain Cook Hotel is a woman dressed in white who appears, in of all places, the women’s lobby restroom. Details were never really reported as most hotels try to keep such information as private as possible, but in 1972 a young guest at the hotel committed suicide in the restroom. Her presence is seen and felt all these decades later with subtle paranormal activity. Innocently enough, female guests in the restroom have spoken of the lights wildly flickering on and off with nobody controlling them, only for a maintenance worker to determine there’s no issue with the circuitry as well as sink faucets mysteriously switching on and off. Female guests inside an actual stall have complained of adjoining stall doors flying open and banging back and forth quite violently. The overactive stall doors have no explanation as nobody is found to be in the restroom at all when this happens.

Guests who have happened to see the spirit, describe her as younger in her 20s, dressed in white, having a stressed look on her face. In fact, female guests at the hotel who have entered the restroom have come out so panicked at the activity that it’s not uncommon for a guest services manager to go into the restroom and openly ask the young spirit to stop making a commotion! Some people have speculated that a separate entity is also haunting the space just outside the tower as some people have spoken of an unseen hand trying to intertwine its fingers with that of the living.

The Captain Cook Hotel remains today as one of the premier luxury hotels in all of Alaska. Ghost tours in Anchorage are now including the hotel as a stop on their ever-growing lists of haunted spots.

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.