Boo! Omni Shoreham Hotel's Haunted History

Guests check in at the iconic luxury hotel, but not all of them check out ...

Many hotels today have extras like in-room coffee makers, business centers and on-site dining. The historic Omni Shoreham in Woodley Park boasts all of this, plus a few extras, including a couple of ghosts​.

At least, that's the story according to legend . . .

Built in 1930, the Omni Shoreham’s opening on Halloween night might have been a foreshadowing of the historic hotel's apparent haunting.

​Its art deco halls and stately rooms have hosted every inaugural ball  since President Franklin D. Roosevelt and many more famous guests than ghosts over the years. Countless celebrities have entertained in the legendary Blue Room and the Marquee Bar and Lounge,  including: Judy Garland, Phyllis Diller, Benny Goodman, Aretha Franklin, Peggy Lee, George Kirby, Pearl Bailey, Eartha Kitt, Tony Bennett, Bob Hope, and many others. The Blue Room is also the place where John Kennedy brought Jackie Kennedy when they were still courting and where Liza Minelli had her first public performance.

But there was darkness behind the glittery facade. After the hotel's construction, a minority shareholder and wealthy businessman, Henry Doherty, moved with his family to an exquisite eighth floor apartment with the executive housekeeper of the hotel, Juliette Brown. Brown woke up ill one morning and reached for the phone to dial a doctor.  A few hours later, an engineer noticed a phone line was off the hook, and he discovered her dead, with a phone hanging just inches from her hand.

The coroner reported she died of natural causes, but later, the Doherty family's daughter also died in the suite, leading to rumors of suicide or a drug overdose. The family left the suite in 1973, after four decades of residence, and for a number of years, the suite remained empty and shut off from the rest of the hotel. 

Despite this, the hallway around the suite had a number of minor disturbances, like moving carts and unexplained breezes. The room where the strange occurrences were reported have come to be known as "The Ghost Suites." Guests have claimed to see a little girl was running around the halls and an older woman in a long, old-fashioned dress roamed the halls. In 1997, the hotel decided to renovate the suite. During renovations, a worker fell to his death from the balcony. Some of the more superstitious staff members refuse to even go up there alone, and complaints from guests on the floor still come in frequently.

Are you brave enough to spend a night in the Ghost Suite?  Book a room (when the hotel re-opens in January 2021) and find out if the stories are true!

But, you might want to sleep with the lights on . . . just in case.

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