The Horton Grand Hotel in the Gaslamp part of San Diego would be a great location for the Ghost Adventures crew to investigate. They say that room 309 is particularly haunted, and not open to guests. Apparently room 309 has doors that can not be shut no matter what they try. The doors always re-open mysteriously.
This piece was based on an actual experience I had while staying in San Diego many years ago. Here is my story...
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My Ghost Story
The story you are about to read is absolutely true and to the best of my recollection.
Location: The Horton Grand Hotel, San Diego, California, USA
311 Island Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101-6998, United States
(619) 544-1886
I used to travel to the ESRI International Users Conference in San Diego pretty much annually from the period of roughly 1997 to 2008 more or less. The second year I went I had requested the Horton Plaza Hotel and through a mix up I ended up with The Horton Grand Hotel which was actually closer to the conference so I was ok with that.
I arrived and noticed that it was a very old hotel that was redone and quite nice inside and even had a guest book in the room itself on top of the fire place mantel. I looked through the book, and apart from a few odd passages it was pretty much normal.
My room was unique in that it had French doors and a balcony looking to an inside courtyard. A beautiful setting where a wedding reception was actually being held. Here is where the story begins... As I was looking into the courtyard, out of nowhere my toilet flushed. I assumed that it may have been the cleaning person or some admin person in there. I waited a while and when I didn't hear anything, I knocked on the door. Nobody answered, so I went inside and nobody was there. Weird. I assumed the toilet flush was due to the old age of the toilet and old style design with the brass tank elevated near the ceiling unlike most modern day toilets.
The first day of my conference I left early to grab a business breakfast with a vendor i worked with. I walked onto the elevator from the third floor and proceeded to the first. The elevator took me there, but would not let me out. It proceeded back to the third floor then back - this happened a few times. Just before i was about to press the emergency button, the doors opened and let me out. I assumed it was just an old elevator, and i did not panic in any way.
By about Wednesday i realized that every time i walked past the front desk an employee always asked me if everything was ok (even if they were dealing with a client, they would pause and ask me is everything ok). At first I figured this was exceptional customer service, but by Wednesday it became just weird. I never connected any dots here.
I got back to my room from my day on Thursday and was resting on the bed before going out for a nice diner in San Diego. The TV was on and I was reading something and a bit distracted. I noticed that the TV started to get a really strange form of reception that i never witnessed before. I didn't think it was a ghost, I just thought it was weird form of reception. Wavy lines in the form of shapes that i couldn't make out. I have never seen this before or after. Later that night I was sleeping and the alarm went off. I rushed out of bed to get out, got dressed, proceeded into the hallway then I realized it was just a dream I was having and the hotel was completely silent. I went back to bed.
On Friday things started to really take a turn. I came back from diner and was resting on the bed. The TV was on and I was watching a show. Out of absolutely nowhere, the channel changed, then changed again and again. I was totally freaked out, as that never happened to me before. I picked up the remote and switched back and everything went back to normal and it never switched again.
It gets worse, much worse... That night while sleeping I was awoken very early in the morning, about 3 am, to small children screaming at the top of their lungs, running and banging on all the doors down the long hallway. I jumped out of bed and went out to the hallway to deal with it and absolutely no one was there and the hotel was completely silent. I was totally shocked. I figured i had a bad dream or possibly a nightmare, which is weird cause I don't have nightmares (not before, not after). This was very strange. I have two nieces (who were kids back then) and I know that children don't going running down the hall at 3am -- this just doesn't happen. I just went back to bed as I had a flight the next morning.
During the entire week I never linked any of these events to paranormal experiences, ghosts, spirits etc. Not at all. I just reduced every event down to something: an old toilet, an old elevator, a broken TV. This changed Saturday morning. I had to pick up a flight (and i had to leave the hotel around 6am which was early for me). I shared a minivan style cab with a couple who was also going to the airport. I was really tired sitting/dozing in the front seat when i started to make sense of the couples conversation in the backseat coming out of my sleepy daze. They were mentioning very strange things that happened to them during the week. I vividly remember the cab driver looking back at them when he explained that the hotel is haunted. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I started to recall all of the incidents that happened to me during that week. At this point i was wide awake with enormous clarity. He told us a story about room 309 which is off limits to patrons and only available to special guests under special conditions. Even maintenance people proceed cautiously into room 309. Apparently a murder happened there many many years ago and for whatever reason the French doors do not close. They have tried everything, but to no avail. I cant recall what room number i stayed in, but it wasn't 309.
Did I have a real paranormal experience(s)? I have no idea. As a professional, this is an absolutely true story to the best that I can recall many years later. If it were not for the cab driver, I would never have connected the dots. I never knew the place was haunted either before or during my stay. I never stayed at the Horton Grand Hotel again and not sure that i would. I wanted to take a ghost tour years after in San Diego, but never was able to line it up.
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This Digital Art
This digital art piece was created based on an original photo from
Adam Jones on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adam_jones/6922204379/
The original image is an amazing daytime shot. So clean, so clear. I needed to create a haunted look for my ghost story. I added a parchment texture and used a feathered selection to delete the centre. This gives the image a textured vignette style outer edge. Then i darkened the image using a few solid fill black layers setting the mode to overlay for a night time setting. I also took the original image and ran a black and white photo to the image, then set the original colour layer to hard light mode (15% opacity) - still a color image, but gives a highly muted appearance.
As you can see from the original I was able to use GIMP to change the mood of the photo. In general I have been trying to vary the mood that calligraphy can be used in... Everything from my Summer 2012 / June / July Calendar to a more historic / scary feel to a piece like Horton Grand / ghost adventures. People have typecast calligraphy for wedding invitations only, and this is simply not true -- calligraphy can be used anywhere in a variety of ways. Classic calligraphy is a refreshing change from typical fonts used over and over and over again.
My Calligraphy
I used my gothic calligraphy titled, textura stubby and narrow, added a few icicles, diamonds, and swirls to create an emblem look fitting the period. The embellishments above and below the lettering are simply vector art. The hotel lettering in red just adds mystery. I tried many different ways to layout this piece and decided on this optical vertical centre to balance it against the photo. Just enough lettering / just enough photo balance.
While this wallpaper is creepy, the hotel is actually a nice place to stay and I would recommend it (if you can deal with the haunted aspects). Many of the rooms have their own fireplace, guest book and French doors opening to the balcony / courtyard. They have weddings in the courtyard quite often. Beautiful architecture that was redone inside -- i think an addition was put on also. Classy place in the Historic Gaslamp section of San Diego.
Cheers
Steve
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romaincrisis
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