Area bed and breakfasts turn spotlight on ghosts, haunted happenings

Hotels and inns offer a broad range of amenities. Some have doormen who open entryways for guests. Others have ghosts that open doors and cabinets while guests are trying to relax.

Some places offer central air conditioning, while others have unexplained, spine-tingling cold spots in the rooms.

Some facilities have in-room coffeemakers and blowdryers, while others have sightings of "grayish figures" gliding down the stairs.

For Tri-State travelers more interested in the possibility of having an encounter with a ghost than having a valet and concierge service, there are several inns within a few hours' drive that say they have visitors beyond just the paying ones.

At the Colonel Taylor Inn Bed & Breakfast in Cambridge, Ohio, owner Patricia Irvin said spirits have been known to swing open closet doors, open a tough-to-unlatch medicine chest while guests are in the bathtub and move throw pillows from place to place.

When Irvin and her husband, Jim, bought the ornate 1870s home in 1999, they didn't know there was anything unusual about it.

But it didn't take long for her to know something was going on.

"I had lived all over the country because of my husband's job, but I had never had this feeling before until I moved here," she said. "The hair on the back of my neck would stand up and I would feel I was being watched."

Irvin also once saw a figure walking down the steps. And inn guests regularly report hearing footsteps and smelling pipe tobacco in the nonsmoking inn, which Irvin and "Haunted Ohio" writer Chris Woodyard say is that of Col. Taylor, the Civil War veteran and four-term congressman who built the house.

Irvin doesn't advertise the hauntings, but she has started getting guests who come after hearing about it, and this year for Halloween she's doing a Halloween theme for guests. She said her husband isn't a big believer, but after their heavy antique bed started shaking one night for no reason, he wonders a little more.

"But he says, 'I know there's some explanation for it," Irvin said.

In fact, many times when people think an occurrence indicates a ghost, there is a more natural explanation for it, said Woodyard. In the case of the Colonel Taylor Inn, however, Woodyard visited and said she saw ghosts of a servant, a "rude little boy" and even a cat.

She has been writing the popular five-installment "Haunted Ohio" series of books, along with several other ghost hunters' titles, since 1990. Her interest in the topic came from a very personal level.

"It runs in our family to see dead people," she said. "It was terrifying at first, and it still can be scary for no good reason."

Linda Williams isn't scared by the odd things she said happen at The Old Bridge Inn in Jeffersonville, Ind., which she opened as a bed and breakfast in 1999. She said the spirits like to play games, especially hiding lots of pennies around the house in unusual places, and they love to play with the candles around the house, repeatedly making the flame get very low and then very high.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Williams said. "I feel their presence is friendly and that they're happy that people are here."

Her guests don't seem to mind, either. A visitor from Arizona two weeks ago reported being tapped repeatedly on the foot but said it didn't scare her. And Williams mentions the situation on her Web site and is happy to discuss it with guests who ask.

Kathryn Bux also is happy to discuss her inn's special visitors with her paying visitors if they ask. George Clarke House in Lexington, Ky., which she and her husband, Robert, bought in 2000, was featured in the new book "Haunted Inns of America" and has been visited by the president of Ghost Chasers International.

Guests often report that their belongings are moved from room to room, and many report hearing conversations when there are no other people around, Bux said.

"Some people think it's so cool, and a few of them have gotten a little rattled," she said. "But we've never had anyone go screaming out of the house."

Bux and her husband restored the house to its 1890 glory, hiring a historic interior designer for accuracy. Kathryn dresses in period costume to serve breakfast, while Robert dresses as Jeeves the butler on weekends.

It's fun touches like that, rather than simply the hope of seeing a ghost, that should draw visitors to these inns, Woodyard said. Go because they have great food or a beautiful house, she said, and maybe you'll see something else. But going simply to see a ghost might make people more likely to misinterpret things.

A little closer to home, Woodyard said the Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon and the Snowhill Country Club in Clinton County are places where guests have reported seeing ghosts.

Whether guests at the inns believe in ghosts or not, Williams said the ones at her inn aren't going anywhere.

"The spirits have been here much longer than us and will be here long after we're gone," she said.