When she arrived at the Hotel del Coronado, she registered as Mrs. Lottie Anderson Barnard. She could scarcely wait to dress and go to the game room. When she did arrive and looked in the door, there sat Lou playing cards at one of the tables. A pretty woman, her arms looped affectionately around his neck, leaned over him as he played. Kate saw him lay his cards on the table, smiling triumphantly, and reach up to touch the woman’s arm. You might have heard a heart break. You might have heard a tear drop, if it were possible to hear either.
Lou did not look toward the doorway and Kate never entered the room. Turning quickly away, she walked through the vast lobby out to one of the carriages sitting in front of the hotel and gave the driver the address of a shop in San Diego. When the carriage brought her back to the hotel she was carrying a paper bag.
Back in room 302, Kate unfolded the pretty clothes she had bought the day before she left Los Angeles, threw them in the fireplace, and touched the newspaper beneath the kindling with one of the large wooden matches from the small white china match box on the mantel. Then she took from her suitcase a bracelet of woven hair with a picture of a man’s face set in the medallion’s centerpiece, looked at it, and threw it into the fire on top of the clothing. Last to go into the flames was her pocketbook.
Picking up the paper bag, Kate started down the long carpeted hallway to the elevator. The door of the ornate brass cage closed behind her. Was there anything else she should do? Yes, one more thing.
“Is a Mr. Lou Garrou registered here?” she asked, stopping at the desk.
The clerk went through the cards on the rack. “Yes, madam. Through Sunday.”
“May I have a piece of paper?” Kate wrote three sentences on it. Lottie Barnard was registered in room 302. She loved you very much. She came to tell you your child was on the way.
“Would you have someone take this note to him in the game room in about fifteen minutes?”
“Of course, madam.”
It was raining heavily when Kate went out the hotel door leading to the oceanfront veranda. She heard the angry rumble of thunder and paused for a moment as flashes of lightning illuminated the scene. Then she reached into the paper bag and, withdrawing the .44 pistol, placed the barrel against her right temple and fired. Muffled by the crashing dissonance of the storm, the shot went unheard. An early riser found her rain-soaked body the next morning and a crowd of shocked guests gathered on the veranda. Whether a gambler who called himself Lou Garrou was among them will never be known.
Opinions of the hotel staff vary from denials that anything ever happened here to admitting nervousness when they must enter the room that was once 302 and today is room 3502. An examination of the 1892 hotel floor plan reveals that this was once a larger room with a cozy fireplace made smaller to accommodate the present built-in bathroom.
One of the elevator operators was more communicative than some other members of the staff. He said guests had questioned him about eerie lights flickering outside 3502. Once a gentleman said he had encountered a young woman in an old-fashioned dress and coat standing, soaked to the bone, at the door of the room late at night. He told of maids hearing the sound of weeping inside. The next morning when they unlocked the door to clean, the room had not been occupied.
Over the years the stories persist. Stormy nights especially give rise to them. Does poor Kate still return to weep over her gambler husband and unborn child?
There is no resort hotel on either coast that can quite match the Hotel del Coronado, which is a National Historic Landmark. Whether you rent room 3502 or not, a stay in this seaside palace is unforgettable. It is located at 1500 Orange Avenue, Coronado, California 92118. Call (619) 435-6611 or visit hoteldel.com/.
THE HAUNTED HOTEL
HOTEL IONE, IONE, CALIFORNIA
The Hotel Ione was said to be haunted by several apparitions.
At the foot of the Sierras in the California gold-rush country nestles the small village of Ione. On Ione’s main street once stood an uncommonly haunted-looking hotel. The building was quintessential Old West. You almost expected a gunfight to erupt at any moment, shots to ring out, and a body to pitch headlong over the second-story balcony.
Millie and William Jones had longed to own this hotel for years; thus, when they were finally able to buy it, they could scarcely believe their good fortune. “We wanted to live here ourselves so that we could make it a hospitable place for other people. We moved into the three front rooms on the second floor,” said Millie, but somehow her warmth and graciousness did not offset the atmosphere of the Hotel Ione.
When they bought the hotel in April 1977, the Joneses were well aware that it needed extensive remodeling. So they began cleaning and painting. They even moved the dining room from the rear to its present position at the front, where we now sat with a view of Main Street. Millie told me the following story.
It was a warm afternoon, June 22nd, when I saw the first apparition. I was quite busy, for I was expecting the Chamber of Commerce for breakfast the next morning. Annie, our dishwasher, and I were the only ones there at that
