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Posts Tagged ‘Crescent Hotel and Spa’

Paranormal Bucket List

I’ve never been much of a traveler, but my interest in the paranormal is going to change that. My trip to the East Coast and the Eastern State Penitentiary last year has fueled a fire in me to stop dragging my feet and get out there and live! So, to begin that process, I am creating a Paranormal Bucket List. This list will contain the haunted places that I want to visit. This will be an ongoing blog as I’m sure I will find new places that I want to visit so be sure to check back in! I hope you find my list fascinating enough to create your own Paranormal Bucket List!

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Hill View Manor is located at 2801 Ellwood Road in New Castle, Pennsylvania. The county built the facility (originally called the Lawrence County Poor House) in 1926 to house their poor, aged, and mentally ill. The home was designed differently then most facilities of the time. There were separate quarters for the men and women. It had its own hospital, cemetery, bomb shelter, as well as a section for officers and employees of the manor. In 1976, a 63,000 sq. ft. addition was added and they changed the name to Hill View Manor. The manor continued to operate as a nursing home until the county had to close it due to financial difficulties in 2004. According to former employees, the third floor is extremely active with unexplained noises, voices and cold spots. Shadow people have also been reported in the building. The cemetery is said to be extremely active as well. The majority of the graves are nameless since they were mostly those who died in the facility whose bodies weren’t claimed by family. You must get permission to visit Hill View Manor. Their website http://www.hauntedhillview.com/ didn’t list specific tour information but you may contact Candy Braniff at (724) 510-5142 or crbraniff@yahoo.com for tour info.

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The Crescent Hotel and Spa is located at 75 Prospect Avenue in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The 78-room hotel was built from 1884-1886 by the Eureka Springs Improvement Company and the Frisco Railroad at the north end of West Mountain. Many tourists flocked to the area during this time period for the “healing waters” of the Ozarks. The hotel was luxuriously decorated from the inside furnishings to the outside landscaping. It was equiped with modern day electric lights and plumbing, steam heating, and an elevator. It was referred to as America’s most luxurious resort hotel. The prosperity of the resort was not long lasting. By the early 1900′s, the people had stopped coming to the resort. From 1908-1924, the hotel was used by Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women and continued to act as a resort during the summers. The tuitions and summer guests did not offset the expenses of running the hotel and resort so it was closed. It sat abandoned until it reopened as a junior college from 1930-1934. It was empty again until 1937 when it was purchased by Norman Baker who wanted to turn it into a cancer hospital/health resort called Baker Cancer Hospital. Baker advertised that patients would walk away from the resort cancer-free. Unfortunately, patients who went there got nothing but scammed. It turned out that Norman Baker wasn’t a doctor nor did he have any medical training. He had already been charged with practicing medicine without a license in Iowa in 1936. He was being investigated by authorities when he opened the hospital and was finally arrested in 1939 for mail fraud. He was convicted and served four years in Leavenworth. Baker defrauded cancer patients out of nearly $4 million. After being released from prison in 1944, he moved to Florida where he lived until his death in 1958. The hotel again sat empty from 1940-1946 before being purchased by four Chicago businessmen who began to restore the hotel. The Crescent Hotel began to thrive once again until 1967 when fire destroyed the fourth floor of the south wing. Over the next several years, the hotel was bought and sold many times with each owner making their own repairs and restorations. In 1997, the hotel was purchased by Marty and Elise Roenigk who vowed to restore it to its original splendlor. The Roenigk’s delivered on their promise and in 2002, after $5 million in renovations, the Cresent Hotel reopened, having been fully restored to its original splendor. Paranormal activity includes apparitions, lights flickering, doors opening, loud banging on the walls, and unexplained screams. The most haunted guest rooms are Rooms 202, 218, 419 and 424. The Crystal Dining Room is another paranormal hot spot which is said to hold many playful Victorian spirits. For more information go to http://www.crescent-hotel.com/.

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St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is located at 400 Basin Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the oldest and most famous cemetery in New Orleans. It opened in 1789 to replace St. Peter Cemetery which was closed after the city was redesigned after a fire. It’s one block past the inland border of the French Quarter. The cemetery is only one square block in size but holds nearly 100,000 interments including legendary voodoo priestess, Marie Laveau (1794-1881). Her tomb is visited by many and covered with black X’s that are left by the visitors as a voodoo offering. Just for the record, voodoo is not my thing, I just want to see the cemetery. Paranormal activity includes hearing sobbing coming from inside various crypts, unusual mists, full bodied apparitions of people as well as dogs and cats. The “ghost animals” were supposedly cared for in life by the cemetery caretaker back in the 1800′s. The caretaker is actually buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2.

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The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, formerly known as the Weston State Hospital, is located at 71 Asylum Drive in Weston, West Virginia. The asylum was constructed from 1858-1881. The original hospital opened in 1864 and was designed to house 250 patients. By the 1950′s the asylum was rundown and overcrowded with over 2,400 patients. The facility finally closed in 1994 due to changes in the treatment of mental illness and deterioration of the buildings. This has had a devastating effect on the local economy which they still haven’t recovered from. Reported paranormal activity includes apparitions and unexplained voices and sounds. Paranormal tour information available at http://www.trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com/.

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The Pythian Castle is located at 1451 E. Pythian Street in Springfield, Missouri. It was built by the Knights of Pythias as an orphanage and senior citizens home in 1913. They called it the Pythian Home of Missouri. In 1942, it was taken over by the US military under an “Order of Immediate Possession”. They used it as offices and a service club for recovering injured WWII veterans. It was considered part of the O’Reilly General Hospital and was maintained by the military until 1993 when it was sold as surplus. Paranormal activity includes dark masses, voices and cold spots. The tunnel underneath the castle is extremely active. Tour Information: Monday-Saturday 9:30 AM, 11:00 AM, 12:30 PM–Monday-Sunday 2:00 PM, 3:30 PM–Monday-Thursday 5:00 PM, 7:30 PM–$7.50 for Age 12-64–$5 for Age 5-12 and 65+–Free for children under 5 and seniors over 90. Paranormal Tours available. To get a peek behind the doors of the Pythian Castle, check out the documentary Children of the Grave or click on the link on the right of this webpage.

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The Lemp Mansion is located at 3322 DeMenil Place in St. Louis, Missouri. The mansion was built in the early 1860′s and was purchased by William Lemp, the son of America’s First Beer Brewer, John Adam Lemp. The Lemp Family was cursed with misfortune. The brewery’s success began to decline after the death of William’s favorite son, Frederick, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1901. Three years later, William committed suicide in one of the mansion’s bedrooms by shooting himself in the head. The brewery was then taken over by William Jr. until the it was permanently closed in 1919 after Prohibition. William Jr.’s sister, Elsa, considered one of the wealthiest women in St. Louis, committed suicide in 1920. In 1922, the brewery, once worth $7 million, sold at auction for less than $600,000 to the International Shoe Company. Most of the family’s fortune was liquidated except for the Lemp Mansion. After the sale of the brewery, William Jr. committed suicide in the mansion like his father had done 18 years earlier. In 1943, his son, William III, died of a heart attack at the age of 42. William Jr.’s brother, Charles, continued to live in the mansion until he shot his dog and then himself in the basement. He was discovered by his brother Edwin, who lived in the mansion until his death from natural causes in 1970. The mansion was then purchased and used as a boarding house. It was sold again and renovated into the restaurant and inn that it is today. Paranormal activity includes apparitions, phantom smells, chairs moving, and doors opening and closing. Paranormal Tour Information: Thursday evenings on specified dates–$25 per person–$125 if you want to spend the night. For more information go to www.lempmansion.com.

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The Hot Lake Hotel is located at 66172 Highway 203 in La Grande, Oregon. Prior to the hotel being built, the hot springs were used by Native American tribes to nurse their sick and wounded on neutral ground. It also became a popular stopping place for fur traders. The hotel was built in 1864 and quickly became a popular vacation spot for people to relax in the hot springs. It was purchased by Dr. W.T. Phy in 1917 who added a state-of-the-art medical facility which included a hospital that provided the most modern radiation treatments of the time. The hotel was used as a resort and a hospital until 1934 when the majority of the original building was destroyed by fire. The remaining brick structure was used for a nursing home, an asylum and a restaurant over the years until it was abandoned in 1991. It was finally purchased in 2007 and the restoration began. As of 2010, it functions as a bed and breakfast, museum and spa. Paranormal activity includes the spirit of a gardner who committed suicide, screams coming from the old surgery room and piano music. For more information go to hotlakesprings.com.

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The West Virginia Penitentiary is located at 818 Jefferson Avenue in Moundsville, West Virginia. The first phase of the penitentiary was completed in 1876 and was soon filled with 251 male prisoners. By the early 1900′s the prison held many secondary departments: carpentry, paint and wagon shops, a stone yard, a brickyard, a blacksmith, a taylor, a farm, a bakery and a hospital. The prison was almost totally self sufficient. They opened a coal mine about a mile away where inmates worked saving the prison $14,000 a year in heating expenses. They also built a school and a library to further the education of the inmates. In 1929 they decided to double the size of the penitentiary due to overcrowding. The addition wasn’t completed until 1959 because of a steel shortage during WWII. The history of the prison goes down hill from there. There had been 36 homicides in the prison; successful prison escapes in 1979, two in 1988 and another in 1992; riots in 1973 and 1986. With the building of more prisons, the aging penitentiary’s population dropped to 600-700 inmates by 1995 and the West Virginia Penitentiary was finally decommissioned. Paranormal activity includes a shadow man wandering the prison, cold spots, and unexplained noises and voices. The prison is now open for day tours April-November, Tuesday-Sunday 11:00 AM-4:00 PM. Admission prices: Adults-$10–Seniors-$8–Children 6-16 $6–Ages 5 and under FREE. Paranormal Tours also available. For more information go to www.wvpentours.com.

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Waverly Hills Sanatorium is located at 4400 Paralee Lane in Louisville, Kentucky. The sanatorium started out as a two-story building. Construction began in 1908 and came to completion in 1910. It could safely house 40-50 tuberculosis patients. With the disease reaching epidemic proportions in the area, the small facility was quickly over capacity. Construction began in 1924 and was compeleted in 1926. The new facility would house 400 patients. It remained a tuberculosis hospital until 1961 when antibiotics were invented. The sanatorium was then quarantined and renovated into a geriatrics center called Woodhaven Medical Services. It was finally closed down by the state in 1980. Some say as many as 63,000 people died in the sanatorium. I’d say that has to contribute to the paranromal activity. One of the more noted areas of Waverly Hills is the body chute where they would roll the bodies of the deceased down a railway system in the tunnel to hearses and boats. You must call to schedule a tour of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. You can call Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday from 9:00 AM-5:oo PM and on Thursdays from 9:00 AM-1:00 PM (Closed for lunch on these days from 1:00-2:00 PM). Their phone number is (502) 933-2142 or go to their website for more information www.therealwaverlyhills.com.