Some hotels can list apparitions among their amenities. Ten properties in ConventionSouth’s coverage area made last year’s Top 25 Historic Hotels of America (HHA) Most Haunted Hotels list. Along with legendary service, these properties offer legends of lingering guests and former occupants. Many embrace the paranormal activity, offering ghost tours and other eerie events, particularly around Halloween. For a ghostly fun treat, here are some haunting tales from HHA’s list of hotels where the past is present.
The Emily Morgan Hotel
Across from The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, The Emily Morgan Hotel is known as one of the most haunted hotels in the Lone Star State and, indeed, the world. The 1924 building is lined with gargoyles and originally served as a medical facility. Most of the reported supernatural activities take place on the seventh, ninth, and 14th floors, which served as the psychiatric ward, surgery level, and morgue. Eerie experiences include a wafting antiseptic scent reminiscent of a hospital, visions of a hospital scene when visitors enter guest rooms, and apparitions of nurses pushing gurneys down the hallways. The DoubleTree by Hilton property offers more than 4,000 square feet of meeting space and a special “Room With a Boo” package.
Hilton Baton Rouge Capital Center
A political phantom is said to haunt the Hilton Baton Rouge Capital Center in Louisiana. The infamous former governor and U.S. senator Huey P. Long remains as flamboyant in death as he was in life, reportedly roaming the 10th floor of the 1927 hotel he once frequented. His spirit is said to stroll the hallway smoking a cigar, and housekeeping staff say they sometimes notice a faint whiff of smoke in the smoke-free property. Among the hotel’s more than 34,000 square feet of event space is The Tunnel, set in an underground passage Long used to come and go unseen.
Omni Grove Park Inn
Built in 1913, the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., has a spectral figure so prominent it has a name: The Pink Lady. Her colorful presence has been seen and felt in the form of a pinkish smoke. Other reports claim the shape of a woman with long hair and wearing a pink ballgown develops out of the mist. Many believe it is the spirit of a young woman who fell to her death from the property’s fifth floor in the 1920s. The smoky specter is said to be partial to children and a gentle soul whose presence sometimes produces a tickling sensation on guests’ feet. The mountaintop resort constructed of granite boulders has more than 86,000 square feet of meeting space.
River Street Inn
A grand staircase, period furnishings, and wrought iron balconies set the scene for this ghostly tale. River Street Inn, the oldest hotel on River Street in Savannah, Ga., is located in a restored, 200-year-old cotton warehouse overlooking the Savannah River. Built in 1817, the property has had its share of apparitions appear to staff and guests. These playful ghosts are reported to breathe into the ears of the living, move items to strange locations in guest rooms, and call out names. Some people have reported drawers that open on their own and visions of children playing in hallways only to vanish.
