Check into a Haunted California Hotel for a Spooky Stay this Halloween
SACRAMENTO, CA [August 22, 2013]--For a hair-raising experience this Halloween, travelers can check into one of California’s historic, haunted hotels. Several members of the California Association of Boutique & Breakfast Inns (CABBI) are known for lingering spirits who have stayed long past their check-out times. Innkeepers have spine-chilling stories to share about their ghostly guests, and one hotel is even the first stop on a popular ghost hunt tour.
After staying in the 1859 Historic National Hotel in Jamestown, even non-believers have been known to change their convictions about the super-natural. Many guests have shared accounts of doors slamming, lights going on and off, clothing being dumped from suitcases onto the floor, and a woman's sobbing coming from the hallway in the middle of the night. A ghost named Flo is to blame. It’s believed that her fiancé was shot dead by a drunkard who had stumbled through the front doorway of the hotel. Flo found her fiancé lying at the bottom of the stairs in a pool of blood by the opened door. For days she sobbed uncontrollably in her room, and then there was silence. The hotel staff found her dead in her room, wearing her wedding gown, presumably having died of a broken heart. Flo's ghost generally stays upstairs in the hotel, favoring the rooms in the front of the building. Although on occasion, early in the morning, she has been seen downstairs, floating through the dining room and right through the walls.
Book room 15 at the Groveland Hotel near Yosemite and you could have unexpected company. Lyle, a gold miner who met his demise in 1927, appears to have taken permanent residence in the historic hotel. Lyle is finicky about his room and guests have often complained that he moves articles placed on the dresser. Several paranormal investigation teams have come to pursue Lyle and report that he may not be the only permanent guest at the hotel. The spirits of a gambler and a lonely bride are also said to be persistent visitors. Guests of the hotel can conduct their own personal investigation.
Deemed one of America’s most haunted hotels, the historic Queen Anne Hotel in San Francisco was originally built in 1890 for Miss Mary Lake as a finishing school for girls. The building was sold to another buyer nine year later, and legend has it that Miss Mary Lake was not happy about the sale. She’s spent her afterlife wandering the halls and stairwells of the hotel, primping in the mirror on the second floor, and haunting her former room: the Mary Lake Suite, room 410. She makes tapping noises, periodically plays the piano and creates mischief for the hotel staff. Miss Mary’s apparition has been seen so frequently that the popular walking tour, San Francisco Ghost Hunt, begins at the hotel five nights a week, every Wednesday through Sunday.
Albert Shafsky built his home in Placerville in 1902, and it appears his ghost has never left. According to the innkeepers at the Albert Shafsky House Bed & Breakfast, he sometimes locks guests out of their rooms, leaves pennies in strange places and has even been seen standing at the foot of one guest’s bed.
According to Mendocino town lore, Donald MacCallum (born in 1880 as the only son of Daisy and Alexander MacCallum) has never truly left the second floor of the MacCallum House Inn. Over the years, many guests of the inn have testified to strange and unexplained happenings in one of the inn’s rooms. It’s believed that Donald’s spirit still resides in room four, the bedroom where he slept from the time he was an infant.
In Chico, the Goodman House, was confirmed as having a strong spirit presence by San Francisco Bay area medium and psychic Marge Cuddeback. Before the colonial revival foursquare became a B&B, the house was converted into law offices. Rumors of haunting began soon after the lawyers occupied the building, including one attorney whose desk nameplate was repeatedly thrown on the floor.
For more information about the hotels, visit www.cabbi.com.
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