Read an Excerpt
The Biltmore
Miami
Miami was a nice change after our time in the Keys, still leisurely but a little more exciting. Miami proper has a population of less than 400,000, but Miami-Dade County has over 2 million people, and it’s difficult to know which city you’re in as you drive from Homestead to West Palm Beach. The area has a colorful history, which goes back only to the late 1800s, when Henry Flagler tired of St. Augustine and set his sights on the southeast coast.
In the early 1900s George Merrick, a land developer, created Coral Gables, just west of Miami, as a suburb intended for affluent residents. He built wide, tree-lined boulevards, huge Mediterranean-style mansions, lush golf courses, and country clubs, landscaped with banyan trees and tropical foliage.
In 1925 he teamed with hotel magnate John Bowman to begin construction on a “great hotel... which would not only serve as a hostelry to the crowds thronging to Coral Gables, but also would serve as a center of sports and fashion.”
Ten months and $10 million later, the Biltmore opened, with its spectacular tower patterned after the Giralda in Seville, Spain, a huge swimming pool for aquatic events, two 18-hole golf courses, canals with gondolas, a polo grounds, and cavernous ballrooms among its many amenities.
During the “Roaring Twenties” and later the Depression, the Biltmore was alive with activity and events that drew thousands. In the depths of the Depression, the hotel stayed alive with synchronized swimming demonstrations, a four-year-old phenomenon who dove from an eighty-five-foot platform, and alligator wrestling.
In 1942, as World War II developed into a global conflict, the War Department converted the Biltmore into the Army Air Force Regional Hospital, which treated wounded soldiers and aviators returning from overseas. Windows were sealed with concrete for the blackout. Marble floors were covered with utilitarian linoleum. Rooms were converted to sick wards, operating rooms, and administrative offices. There was even a morgue constructed on a lower floor.
The University of Miami School of Medicine was housed in the building for a time, and after the war, the hotel remained as a Veteran’s Administration Hospital until 1968.
The building sat empty for five years until the City of Coral Gables, through the Historic Monuments Act and Legacy of Parks program, took possession. It remained empty for another 10 years while the City decided what to do with it. Finally, in 1983, Coral Gables began restoring the old hostelry, and after four years and $55 million, it opened again as a grand hotel. It remained open only three years because of the poor economy in the late 1980s and once again sat empty.
But in June 1992, the Seaways Hotels Corporation bought the building and began a 10-year, $40 million renovation with a remarkable team of architects and engineers, including the acclaimed interior designer, Lynn Wilson. Guest rooms were renovated, new computer and telephone systems were installed, and the 700,000-gallon swimming pool was resurfaced with polished marble. The Biltmore is once again the crown jewel of Coral Gables.
Joanne, my ghost-magnet pal, hadn’t been able to go to the Keys with Sue and me, but she joined us now on our Miami visit. Our first stop was the Biltmore.
Sue was amazed at the changes. During summers when she was in high school, she had visited a friend who had moved to Coral Gables. On one visit, the girls went to the VA hospital, where her friend’s father worked, and they were able to tour the facility, even going to the top of the tower for a view of the city. She remembered the hospital as a very austere place, very clean, but lacking any aesthetic value. The walls were painted in putrid government green. She was astounded by the renovation, the beautiful carpeting, the paintings, and furnishings. It definitely was not the same building she had been in so long ago.
Joanne, of course, was in her element. As she is prone to do, she struck up conversations with maintenance workers, maids, and even guests we met in the hallways, and we heard dozens of stories. She also discovered several entities roaming the halls just as we were, especially in the area that had housed the morgue. One of the maintenance workers whom we spoke with told us that even to this day, lights are turned on and off, and music with no identifiable source is heard. He said that once, as he was standing in the lobby late in the evening, he heard a loud crash, which sounded like a large vase or urn being smashed to the floor. When he looked around, everything was in order.
A maid told us that a young woman wearing a white dress had died in the Biltmore in a fall from a fifth-floor balcony. Her six-year-old son had been playing on the balcony and had climbed onto the railing just as she had entered the room. Horrified, she rushed to grab him off the railing and fell over herself. Now a residual haunting, she is seen in various rooms and hallways by many of the guests. Joanne was thrilled later to see the woman in the hallway.
The “Woman in White,” as she is called, is well known at the Biltmore, but the most famous—or infamous—ghost is that of Fatty Walsh, Miami’s most powerful gangster during Prohibition years. Among his many illegal enterprises, Fatty ran a speakeasy and casino on the 13th floor of the hotel. He was known by everyone who was anyone in Miami. Gangsters, movie stars, sports figures, and politicians, even the police knew Fatty Walsh. He had hundreds of friends, but he also had a good share of enemies. As the story goes, one night an angry patron who’d lost a fortune, or perhaps a hit man for another crime boss, shot him in the crowded casino.
With Fatty Walsh gone, the hotel closed and cleaned the casino, but Fatty’s legend—and maybe his ghost—has lived on. He chain-smoked cigars, enjoyed good liquor, and liked his women. Even to this day, people report smelling cigar smoke in the halls, and women especially experience strange sensations as they move around the hotel.
In one especially bizarre incident, a young couple was exploring the hotel and stepped into an elevator. Before they had a chance to push any buttons, the door closed, and the elevator rose, stopping at the 13th floor. That floor is now a private suite and accessible only with a specially coded key, but the door opened.
The couple stood in the elevator for a moment, then the very attractive young woman stepped out into the suite. The door shut rapidly, and the elevator started down. The woman’s husband, beside himself, began pushing buttons but to no avail until the elevator stopped in the lobby, and the door opened again.
Frantic, the young man raced off the elevator to find a bellhop. Although he was reluctant to believe the man because he knew that suite was unoccupied at the time, the bellhop used his coded key to take them back up to the 13th-floor suite. When the elevator door opened, the young woman rushed into her husband’s arms. She related to the men that as she had stood in the suite, she had been enveloped by cold air and could smell a very strong scent of cigar smoke, although she couldn’t see any. She also had heard music and people talking and laughing. She’d had the overwhelming sense that someone was standing right behind her and had even called out to see if anyone were there, but no one answered.
Finally, there is the story of a certain politician in the 1990s who was staying in the 13th-floor suite and wanted to watch a Saturday afternoon football game. When he turned on the television, there was nothing but snow and static. His Secret Service men quickly called the hotel engineer, who could find nothing wrong with the TV set. Even when sets were switched, there was no reception. The politician eventually had to leave the hotel to view the game at a friend’s house.
Joanne, Sue, and I spent the entire afternoon meandering around the place. It seemed to be a slow day, and the employees and guests we met were willing to stop and chat, regaling us with stories of the strange things that had happened in the hotel.
The Biltmore may or may not be the most haunted hotel in America, but it is certainly one of the most luxurious. If Fatty Walsh truly does haunt its halls, he has chosen a wonderful place to spend eternity.
