Adirondack's haunted hotels?

By Ashleigh Livingston
When it comes to lodging in the Adirondacks, travelers are given a number of options depending on the experience and level of accommodations they desire. There is everything from roadside motels and quaint bed and breakfasts to rustic lodges and lavish resorts. Depending on which destination is chosen, guests may expect no more than a bed, a shower, and a colored TV; or no less than a valet, a room with a view, and a complimentary bottle of champagne. There are some hotels in the Adirondacks, however, that have been known to provide guests with something they may not have expected—a run in with a ghost.
One such hotel is the Sagamore Resort in Bolton Landing, N.Y. Originally opened in 1883 and reconstructed in 1930 due to fire damage, the Sagamore rests on Green Island, surrounded by Lake George. The resort’s promotional Web site boasts the Sagamore’s, “luxury accommodations, extraordinary dining [and] superb fitness and spa facilities.”
But what the Web site does not boast is the resort’s reputation for being haunted.
“The hotel is built on a cemetery from the Indians,” says Hans Visscher, who worked at the resort in the past. “There’re [supposedly] a lot of ghosts around there.”
Visscher, who worked as a captain in the resort’s Trillium Dining Room, which has since been converted into guest rooms, says that guests and employees of the Sagamore repeatedly reported having had a paranormal experience or having seen a ghost in the hotel.
Both Visscher and Kevin Rosa, director of sales and marketing at the hotel, agree that two common thread ghost stories surround the hotel, although their accounts of these stories vary slightly.
According to Visscher, one story involves the ghost of a middle-aged woman wearing a blue polka-dot dress, who has been spotted running around in the hotel’s hallways.
“The people that have seen her say the same thing, so it should be true because they’ve never talked to each other,” says Visscher.
The second common story involves the ghosts of two children who have been heard giggling in the hallways, according to Rosa, though Visscher says it is the ghost of one female child in a white gown that has been seen.
Both men say that they don’t believe the sightings have left guest frightened enough not to return to the hotel; however, Visscher says that one of the hotel’s guest rooms was off limits to visitors when he worked there.
“There is one room that was never rented out, and I forgot the number,” says Visscher, “but [they never used it] because there were always noises. People heard noises at night.”
Though Rosa says that the ghost sightings at the hotel are, “not a spooky thing,” but rather just something that happens, The Sagamore chooses not to advertise its reputation for being haunted.
“[The reputation] doesn’t lose us business, but it doesn’t gain us business,” says Rosa.
Still, some hotels in the Adirondacks have made a point to highlight their supposed live-in ghosts, perhaps in hopes that those intrigued by the paranormal might be more likely to visit.
The BrightSide, for example, a small, rustic inn on Raquette Lake, is very open about its reputation for being haunted.
In fact, the BrightSide’s promotional Web site, www.brightsideonraquette.com, provides visitors with a disclaimer of sorts, which states:
“As with any old, historic building, one of the many aspects of history that always seems intriguing to people is the tales and stories of ghosts. The BrightSide in its many years of serving as a hotel has acquired quite a few over the years and also within the past couple. There have been quite a few instances where our guests, even today, insist that they saw, felt, witnessed, or simply knew that there was ‘something’ there.”
Becky Wood, training coordinator for Fiber Instrument Sales, a company that holds training classes at the BrightSide, corroborates the Web site’s statements, saying that she knows of many credible people who claim to have felt something or even had their bed shake inexplicably while at the hotel, and though she says she has never actually seen a ghost at the BrightSide, she believes they could be there.
“I have spent many nights up there, and I would say there’s something up there,” says Wood.
As for whether or not the hotel’s reputation attracts guests, Wood says, “I think they are intrigued when they come up,” though she adds that the ghost lore certainly isn’t the only reason guests visit the hotel.
Of course, there is much debate about whether ghosts exist at all, let alone whether they haunt the hallways and rooms of these hotels.
Both the Sagamore and the BrightSide have been approached by paranormal groups, hoping to stay at the hotels and investigate the possibility of ghostly presences, which is something both hotels are considering, according to Rosa and Wood respectively.