Scare Tactics

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Paranormal enthusiasts seek out haunted hotels in the hopes of checking in for a terror-filled night—but what are these businesses doing to sell their spooky suites?

By Katcy Stephan

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The haunted hotel business is ‘boo’-ming across the country, including in Southern California.

Bloomberg estimates that, at Colorado’s Stanley Hotel, best known as the inspiration for Steven King’s “The Shining,” “paranormal programming may constitute nearly a third of the hotel’s annual million-dollar tour revenue.”

And that makes for devilishly good business. In Southern California, three such hotels at the center of the “ghost-tourism” industry take drastically different approaches to fielding rumors of spirits and specters.

“There’s some crazy rumors about murders on board,” said Kelly Dettmer, paranormal tour guide at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. “My favorite is one about a woman that went crazy in her third class cabin and smashed her baby’s head against the wall. That didn’t happen. But I do get people coming on board asking me to go to that room.”

Whether hotels choose to market their hauntings or not, one thing is certain: the public fascination with ghosts doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon.

Shows like Syfy’s “Ghost Hunters” and Travel Channel’s “Ghost Adventures” feed into the public’s obsession with the paranormal.

For some, though, watching others investigate the paranormal just isn’t enough. They want to get up close and personal with ghouls, ghosties and things that go bump in the night.

Haunted hotels provide the perfect opportunity for inquisitive superstitious minds to live out their frightful fantasies. For a night, guests can step into the shoes of paranormal investigators and make reservations to find five-star phantoms.

Are these hauntings a marketing dream—or a nightmare?

The Haunt-Happy Hotel

“Stay together and watch your step—we already have enough spirits aboard the Queen Mary, we don’t need to add any more.”

During a late-night Paranormal Ship Walk, tour guide Kelly Dettmer joked about the hauntings aboard Long Beach’s famed Queen Mary.

The ship, which took its maiden voyage in 1936, is the largest passenger ship ever built, measuring more than 1,000 feet long. The ship has been docked in Southern California since its final cruise in 1967, serving as a hotel and event venue.

In its 80-year history, the Queen Mary has piqued the interest of paranormal investigators near and far due to its 68 recorded deaths aboard. And the hotel doesn’t shy away from this disturbing past.

The ship’s website boasts, “When the sun goes down, the spirits aboard the Queen Mary come out to play.” It also cites its ranking as one of “Time” magazine’s Top 10 Most Haunted Places in America.

The ship offers numerous opportunities for guests to have an encounter with the paranormal. Guests staying aboard and other visitors can take the $44 “Paranormal Ship Walk” to “explore the paranormal hot spots” on board, or fully immerse themselves in the $79 “Paranormal Investigation” in which guests are given ghost-hunting equipment and challenged to capture evidence of paranormal happenings.

Kelly Dettmer leads a paranormal tour group through the Queen Mary's bridge on Sept. 30. (Katcy Stephan, Annenberg Media)

During the Paranormal Ship Walk, Dettmer shared many stories from her own experiences and from other workers. One of her most frightful stories was about the Mauretania Room, an event space available for rent.

“In 1989, there were two ladies [who worked for the Queen Mary] who came to set up the room for an event. They noticed a woman in all white looking out one of the porthole windows.”

When their supervisor entered the room, she asked the woman to leave.

“The woman turned to the supervisor, looked at her, turned at the two other women, and looked back at the porthole window. She walked right through the wall. All three women reported seeing the exact same thing,” Dettmer said.

The hauntings didn’t stop in that room in 1989, though. Dettmer told the group that when events are held in the Mauretania Room there are often complaints that a crew member in an all-white uniform is in all the guests’ photos. There’s only one problem, though.

“We don’t have any staff dressed in all white,” she said.

Melanie Smith, who was in town for the weekend, went on the Paranormal Ship Walk in addition to staying overnight.

“I’ve been on ghost tours in New Orleans before, and I just thought this would be more fun than staying at a regular hotel,” she said.

An overnight stay on the ship starts at around $110, with price varying based on the day and time of year.

For some paranormal enthusiasts, just staying aboard the Queen Mary isn’t spooky enough. They want to take their ghostly encounters to the next level by staying in the most haunted room.

Room B340 has been retired from the ship’s registry of rooms for rent, due to staggering amounts of paranormal activity.

“The reports coming to the front desk varied, but some reported banging on the walls, lights turning on and off, and the sink turning itself on and overflowing,” Dettmer said. “Other guests reported waking up to find all their belongings strewn across the room.”

Dettmer said one of the last guests to stay in the room during its final 1967 voyage reported feeling of all her blankets being ripped off in the middle of the night, and seeing a man standing over the bed. She paged a steward to her Room B340, who was monitoring the hallway directly beside her room.

“He had to tell her that no one had come or gone from her room the entire night,” Dettmer said.

The room is only checked out to paranormal investigators, like the team from Syfy’s “Ghost Hunters.”

Dettmer said that doesn’t stop guests from trying to sneak a peek of B340.

“People try to stay the night in it. This is a pretty regular occurrence for us. Because this happens so often, security does regular sweeps of this area at nighttime. When they find folks in there, they do kick them off the ship,” she said.

Security has even taken extra measures to keep guests from finding the room in the first place.

“In order to discourage people from being able to do this, they actually took the room number off the doorway here, so it would be harder to find the room,” Dettmer said.

Even without being able to stay the night in B340, there’s no shortage of creepiness for guests to indulge in aboard the Queen Mary.

During the month of October, the ship invites guests to indulge in the “darkest depths of your deepest hidden fears” during their annual Dark Harbor event. In addition to creating a nighttime carnival next to the Queen Mary, the event brings actors aboard the ship as a “cast of sinister spirits,” guiding guests through haunted mazes.

The Queen Mary's Dark Harbor event transforms the ship's surrounding area into a carnival of terrors. (Katcy Stephan, Annenberg Media)

Dettmer said the ship attracts “a really diverse group of people. Some are here for the history. Others know it’s haunted and want to see a ghost.”

The Spiritual Specter

At first glance, it’s easy to miss the Joshua Tree Inn. It’s tucked along the Twentynine Palms Highway, just past Palm Springs, set apart only by two signs, shrouded by trees, detailing the inn’s name and advertising “courtyard rooms & suites.”

The Joshua Tree Inn is far more than what meets the eye, though. Against the window of the main office rests a small sign.

“The Home of Gram Parsons Spirit.”

Gram Parsons, a country singer who rose to moderate fame in the late 1960s, died of an overdose in Room 8 of the Inn on Sept. 19, 1973.

Margo Paolucci, the Inn’s owner, spoke about the importance of Gram’s legacy on the hotel, and, specifically, Room 8.

“This is the most popular room, definitely. It’s probably rented about 97 percent of the time,” she said.

Paolucci said that those who stay in “Gram’s Room,” which costs $109 per night, are less interested in ghost-hunting, and more in feeling the artistic presence of the late artist.

“It’s mostly his fans. And then there’s just curiosity seekers or people who want to learn about him. And a few people who are interested in the paranormal. It’s mostly about paying homage to Gram,” she said.

Despite this trend, the artistic inspiration doesn’t stop guests from sharing their frightful experiences in the room. In the corner of the room, next to a stack of Parsons’ CDs, is a journal where guests can detail their experiences in the room.

Many of the notes reference a “presence,” but others reveal a more ghostly tone. Paolucci recalled one entry that stood out to her.

“I’ve read in the journal, one woman kept waking up at around 3 or 4 in the morning, and saw an apparition walking across the pool,” she said.

DeeDee Rousich, the hotel’s general manager, had her own paranormal experience while cleaning Room 8.

“We used to have a bigger bolt lock on the door. And every day when we clean the rooms, we open it so that the air flows through. I locked it to go grab the broom and the mop. I heard, ‘slam, bang, slam,’ really loudly coming out of the room. There was only me and one other housekeeper on the property at the time, everyone else was gone. There were no guests here. That door was completely open after I had bolt-locked it shut.”

Room 8: Gram's Room. Drag and click to interact. View in full screen for the best experience. (Katcy Stephan, Annenberg Media)

Paranormal experiences are not limited to Room 8, though. Rousich told stories of hauntings all throughout the hotel.

“I was walking into room 6 at one point, doing a walkthrough. It’s when we walk through to make sure everything’s done. I heard a woman’s voice, ‘hello,’ come out of the room, and I thought, ‘Oh, crap, I’m walking in on somebody!’ So I closed it, and I was like, no, wait a minute. So I walked back in and there was nobody in the room.”

She told more tales of showers turning themselves on, banging on the walls, and guests feeling a person standing by their bed, and cabinets opening themselves.

Paolucci told one story of an “over-the-top Gram fan” who had more of an experience at the hotel than she bargained for.

“She finally got her opportunity to come here. She was so happy. But she left in the middle of the night. She said she couldn’t handle the energy—it was too intense. She left, and never spoke to me again.”

Rousich holds firm that there’s nothing to fear at the Joshua Tree Inn, though.

“It’s all fun. Nothing has ever been dangerous. Nothing has ever been bad. It’s all really good, fun energy.”

Paloucci doesn’t advertise the paranormal much when she markets the hotel.

“We don’t deny it, but we don’t promote it. People definitely experience things, but we don’t claim that it’s haunted.”

Paolucci allows the legend of Gram Parsons to spread via word-of-mouth, leaving it up to individual guests to search for what they want from the legend, be it artistic inspiration or encounters with apparitions.

“It’s enough of folklore at this point, that people that are interested can find out about it," she said. "We’ve had paranormal people here with equipment. They say they pick up a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But there’s been nothing definitive."

The Demonic Denial

Not all hotels are keen on the idea of marketing themselves as paranormal hotspots. The Cecil Hotel, just off Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles, has taken measures to distance itself from its dark history.

LA Observed reports that serial killers Jack Unterweger and Richard Ramirez (better known as “The Night Stalker”) both lived at the Cecil Hotel. The site also draws attention to the rumor that Elizabeth Short, “The Black Dahlia,” may have been seen at the Cecil Hotel before her infamous death.

The hotel also saw its share of suicides, with numerous people leaping to their deaths from the upper floors and roof, reports CNN.

The 14-story Cecil Hotel towers over Skid Row. (Katcy Stephan, Annenberg Media)

The most notorious of deaths at the Cecil Hotel, though, is the 2013 case of Elisa Lam.

According to BuzzFeed News, 21-year-old tourist Elisa Lam checked into the Cecil Hotel on Jan. 26, 2013. On Feb. 19, her dead body was found floating in a water tank on the hotel’s roof, 18 days after she was last seen.

The body was discovered by a hotel maintenance worker after guests reported poor water pressure and black water flowing from the sinks and showers.

Elevator surveillance footage surfaced from the night of Lam’s death, showing her pressing multiple buttons, hiding in the elevator’s corner, and talking (either to herself or to something unseen by the camera) while gesturing wildly.

Conspiracy theories still swirl around Elisa’s bizarre behavior. According to Vice, some speculate that Lam was on drugs or hallucinogens, although none were found in her system during her autopsy. Others speculate that she suffered from Tuberculosis, as there was an outbreak in the Skid Row area around the time. This was also disproved by her autopsy, but some hold onto the theory because the test for TB was called LAM-ELISA, a coincidence that many refuse to overlook.

Of course, another popular theory surround Lam’s death is the presence of ghosts. Some speculate that Lam was possessed or chased by a pursuer, and call into question how Lam lowered herself into the tank and shut it, or how she got onto the locked roof in the first place.

The story of Elisa Lam garnered so much attention that a 2013 episode of ABC’s “Castle” was based on her case, and a film adaptation starring Michael Pena is in the works.

In fact, the Cecil’s storied past inspired the hotel-themed fifth season of FX’s “American Horror Story.”

The show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, told entertainment website Collider, “I was always very obsessed with The Hotel Cecil that is downtown, which is where the Night Stalker’s rumored to have stayed, and where they had the video of the girl getting on the elevator. That place has had its share of bad publicity over the years.”

According to reports from TMZ, fans of “American Horror Story: Hotel” flocked to the Cecil in hopes of staying in Lam’s room and examining the now-infamous water tank. The site reported that the Cecil did not support the rush of fans, though, beefing up security measures and keeping Lam’s room off-limits.

The Cecil Hotel underwent a rebranding after Lam’s death, changing its name to the Stay on Main (although a prominent sign still display’s the hotel’s former name). Tourists still flock to the hotel for paranormal experiences, despite the lack of ghostly marketing on the hotel’s part.

How much are guests willing to shell out for possible encounters with the ghosts of Lam of the serial killers that came before her? Hostel-style shared rooms with shared bathrooms sell for $55 per night, while a private room costs $105 per night.

The Cecil’s manager said the hotel does not do interviews, and declined comment for this story. In June of this year, it was announced that the hotel will undergo a $100 million renovation.

No word yet on if the renovation will steer ghost hunters away from the Cecil Hotel and its supposedly phantom-plagued past.

To tour guide Dettmer of the Queen Mary, spirit-driven marketing is a no-brainer.

“We realize it’s a part of our history. Why run from it, when we could embrace it?”