Why settle for sprinting walking through a haunted house when you can actually spend the night at one? With Halloween just around the corner, it’s not too late to book a room at one of Arizona’s most historic (and haunted) hotels. As seen on the paranormal TV series “Sightings,” the Jerome Grande Hotel is a former hospital/asylum that’s popular with ghost hunters looking to catch proof of paranormal activity. A little closer to home, the Hotel San Carlos in Downtown Phoenix has been featured on the Travel Channel’s “Weird Travels,” as well as been voted one of America’s Top 10 Haunted Hotels by Horror.com. More about the haunted hotels and a spook-tacular slideshow after the jump!

The Jerome Grande Hotel

Set high up on Cleopatra Hill above downtown, the Jerome Grande Hotel is a five-story Spanish Mission-style building originally constructed in 1926 to serve as a hospital for the 15,000 copper miners living in the town nicknamed the Billion Dollar Copper Camp. This completely-concrete building first opened its doors in January of 1927 as the United Verde Hospital. However, after 23 successful years the hospital was closed, boarded up and abandoned for 44 years until the Altherr family purchased the old hospital from the Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation in 1994, and turned it into a hotel.

Today, the Jerome Grande Hotel is said to be one of the most haunted buildings in the state of Arizona because of all the strange phenomena occurring over the past 80 years. Guests report hearing coughing, crying and sounds of distress coming from vacant rooms. Hotel lobby desk clerks report of chairs and tables being moved while their backs are turned and of phone calls they receive from empty rooms, of course when they answer no one is on the other end. Other spirits are also said to roam around the hotel and are attributed to a number of tragic events that occurred inside the building including a man in a wheelchair who fell from a balcony, a shooting, and a caretaker who hung himself inside the hospital.

The most famous ghost of the hotel is that of a man named Claude Harvey, a hospital maintenance man in the 1930′s who died from being crushed by the elevator in the basement. Creepy however that he was found dead beneath the old elevator with only his neck broken and a tiny scratch behind his ear. Immediately after his death strange things began happening inside and around the elevator. Even when the building had no power was left on, lights shining up the elevator shaft and sounds of the old creaky working elevator were heard and seen.

Ghost tours are given on select weekdays and only to guests of the hotel for $20 per person. The hotel will supply you with a tour guide and ghost hunting kit, fully equipped with EMF meter, IR thermometer and digital camera to capture the strange occurrences if you dare.

The hotel only has 23 fully restored rooms, so if you are feeling brave enough, plan ahead and make reservations. And don’t forget to stop by the award winning hotel restaurant, The Asylum, we hear they serve up  an awesome set of crab legs.

Hotel San Carlos

Built only a year after the Jerome Grande, The Hotel San Carlos first opened it’s doors in 1928. A huge hit for it’s then revolutionary air-conditioning abilities the hotel was featured on the front page of the Arizona Republic. However, just a few months later, on May 7, 1928, the hotel was back on the front pages for a much more ominous headline entitled, “Pretty Blonde Jumps From the San Carlos Earlier Today.”

A 22 year old named Leone Jenson committed suicide by jumping off the rooftop of the hotel that overlooks all of Downtown Phoenix. Every since then there has been several reports of her spirit still lingering around in the white dress she was wearing the night she died at this historic boutique hotel. Before the hotel, the land was the site of the first elementary school in Phoenix. Those who believe have often mentioned a little girl who is rumored to visit rooms at night and start crying. Others have complained about kiddies making too much noise and bouncing balls down the hallways … when no children are registered at the hotel. Another man committed suicide by jumping off the roof in 1994, only adding on to the ghosts that haunt the Hotel San Carlos. In some of the hotel rooms there have been reports of sinks turning themselves on, doors opening and closing on their own and furniture moving inside vacant rooms.

If you are feeling extra extra brave, tickets for the ghost hunt are $13 for those who are 13 and up, and $7 for ages 8-12. Scary enough for us big kids, this tour is not recommended for those under 8. Tours are held Friday and Saturdays evenings and will take you to places in the hotel not open to the general public. Tours fill up fast, so click here to  register for one of the remaining dates with Ghosts of Phoenix Tours.

Warning: If you decide to brave the ghost tour you must sign a waiver that includes physical and intangible risks of braving the tour including; “dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath, cuts,bumps, nervousness, feelings of dread or fear, hallucinations, paralysis or death.”

Tweet