These “haunted” hotels across America are sure to conjure up some scares if you dare to stay.
By ReMIND Magazine
The Stanley Hotel — Estes Park, Colorado
This 140-room hotel opened in 1909 and offers picturesque views of the Rocky Mountains. It also served as inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s masterpiece The Shining, though the movie was not filmed there. Since the publication of King’s work, the hotel has developed a reputation as a site for paranormal activity, and ghost tours of spaces reputed to be exceptionally “active” are offered to guests and visitors. Room 217, where King and his wife Tabitha once spent the night, is the one most often requested.
Hotel Del Coronado — San Diego, California
Celebrating its 130th birthday this year, this beachfront hotel has hosted everyone from presidents (William Taft, FDR, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, among others) to princes (Edward VIII, then Prince of Wales) to many of Hollywood’s elite: Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin and Mae West, to name a few from an earlier era. More recently, Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt, Robert Downey Jr. and Kevin Costner have visited. The hotel supposedly houses the ghost of one Kate Morgan, who checked into her room in 1892 and never checked out. She was found dead on the stairs leading to the beach five days after her arrival. Her death was ruled a suicide.
Hollywood Roosevelt — Los Angeles, California
A group of Hollywood notables financed this hotel, including Louis B. Mayer, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. The hotel hosted numerous well-known guests over the years, from Montgomery Clift, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard to Prince, Angelina Jolie and Marilyn Monroe — who lived at the hotel for two years. In fact, the hotel is rumored to be haunted by ghosts of Monroe, Clift and Errol Flynn.
The Chelsea Hotel — New York, New York
This New York landmark has been home to a number of famous artists, musicians and writers, including Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac, Tom Wolfe, Andy Warhol, Jane Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Ethan Hawke, Jim Morrison, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen. As far as ghosts go, a number of notable deaths would suggest the possibility of some haunted happenings: Writer Dylan Thomas drank himself to death in the hotel, and Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols was suspected of murdering girlfriend Nancy Spungen there before he died of a heroin overdose.
Bourbon Orleans Hotel — New Orleans, Louisiana
The Bourbon Orleans is reportedly home to three ghosts: a Civil War-era soldier, a little girl playing with her ball, and a dancer – perhaps the mistress of a wealthy gentleman visitor from the early days of the hotel. Another creepy spot to check out: Nicolas Cage’s pyramid tomb in the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, on the north edge of the French Quarter. Cage bought two plots in 2010 and had the nine-foot mausoleum built there, apparently for future use.