I will say that my personal experience has changed my opinion on ghosts in general. Always the skeptic, I ribbed my wife for the stories she told me about her childhood experiences regarding ghosts and it wasn’t until after having two notable experiences where I actually saw a ghost that I began to seriously consider these stories as truth.

My first experience happened one night as I was walking into my bedroom. I saw a young girl following me and thought it was my daughter (assuming she wanted to crawl in bed with mom) so without saying anything I kept walking into the room.  I entered my bedroom, knowing I was still being followed, and was shocked that my wife shut the door slamming it in what I thought was our daughter’s face.  After opening the door and looking around, we discovered both of our daughters were in bed asleep. I then realized it was not our daughter and was in shock at what I saw. My wife knew it was a ghost but I just shrugged it off as my mind was playing tricks on me.

As my life progressed, the paranormal experiences increased, also. I was still seeing the same little girl in our hallway periodically but along with that I was seeing shadow people.  I knew it couldn’t be my eyes playing tricks on me or fatigue because there were too many to write off.

It wasn’t long until I discovered a previous high school beauty named Faith on a social network. As we briefed one another on what we had been doing since high school, one thing led to another and I was hired to build a website for her. angelswithfaith.com

As I built her website we had many opportunities to discuss the paranormal and she sparked my interest in ghost hunting.  The Belleview Biltmore was a slam dunk for my first investigation because it was the place I had captured my first orb. I was at this hotel shooting a television commercial for the Toronto Blue Jays with my DJ business clearwaterdj.com and although at the time I dismissed it as dust, I now know it was much more than that.

While ghost hunting at the Belleview Biltmore I had readings on my EMF detectors that soared. Funny….TAPS will go on and on about readings of 1.2, 1.9 (HA) mine were usually 17-23.  I could explain certain areas due to wiring. But there were areas with NO electric power that were giving off very high readings and I would return to the same spot and find it at zero. I used a KII meter like TAPS and a MEL-8704, which is way better than TAPS EMF equipment. This equipment is awesome and why TAPS isn’t using it is beyond me!

I also used an Olympus DS-30 voice recorder and found EVP’s of a hostile disembodied voice telling me to basically “F myself” and another one identifying himself as “Walter”.  Oddly enough, when I booked a room for our ghost hunt, they gave me the EXACT room where “Walter” identified himself.

At the Belleview Biltmore I saw a full blown apparition of a woman dressed as you would in the 30’s and as I chased her down the hall she vanished to the right. When I got to the end of the hall I noticed there was no hallway where she went – only a wall. So much for that being a real person trying to crank me!  As my wife, Mary, was trying to figure out why I was running down the hall she saw the bottom half of the woman go into a wall. As I climbed the steps of the fourth floor stairs to the fifth floor,  I felt like I was walking in water. I was very light-headed, sluggish, and felt a chill as I heard a woman say; “don’t go up there, they are mad at me”.  It was only in one ear, mid flight on the steps and everything seemed to be moving very slowly-like  in a car accident.  Then I heard two men arguing just past the fifth floor door so I turned and asked my wife, “did you hear that?” she said “no” but I thought she was pulling my leg because they were arguing very loudly. I then thought of the security guards and convinced my wife we should scurry along so we didn’t get caught.

After I got my bearings, I realized a woman, which was obviously a ghost, just whispered in my ear! I told my wife what happened and she was dumbfounded that she heard nothing.

My cameras captured many controversial orbs but also an apparition-one that has been very hard to debunk. I thought it was a light smear, yet as I analyzed photos similar in no way could it be reproduced. Was it the Holy Grail of ghost hunting? You decide.

In conclusion, I will say based on evidence that TAPS and GHI has used to conclude that a place is haunted, I believe mine is stronger than most they have put forward and I go on the record with the following:   “Based on the evidence collected and numerous personal experiences, the Historic Belleview Biltmore Hotel is indeed haunted”.

One expierence, there were many, was while there was a group of us in our room.  We were just all hanging around in the room when one person tried to leave. The door was not locked but it would not open! We tried to open it, we pulled pushed had a number of us try at once…nothing! Finally it got so bad we called down to the front desk. Someone came with an extra key to unlock the door. Of course that didn’t work either. After a number of trys, calling the maintainance person, they decided to saw the door knob off the door so we could get out. They got the knob off, they had to take part of the frame with it, but finally we got out. To this day, we still have the door knob!

It wasn’t until recently that I started to think of all the activity I expoerenced in that hotel. I am going to pull out some of my old photos and take another look at them.

My husband and I moved out to arizona and have done our first  investigation at the Birdcage in Tombstone. We are trying to move back to Florida and would if we make it back there we would love to get into some investigations out there.

The Belleview Biltmore was built in 1897 by railroad tycoon, Henry Plant. It boasts many famous guests that include Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Babe Ruth, and Margaret Thatcher. It sits on 22-acres and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It is a beautiful hotel that everyone should experience at least once!

I was fortunate to be invited to accompany Tim Huck from Clearwater Ghost Hunters to this amazing hotel in Clearwater, Florida. He had already been to this “haunted” hotel a few times and I found the invitation to join him too good to resist-especially since this would be the last chance before the hotel closed for 3 years due to extreme renovations.

The existence of ghosts has never been a question in my mind and I found it a challenge to prove this fact to others so on May 16, I checked in for a night of talking to dead people.

My first experience of the presence of earthbound spirits was right off the elevator to our 3rd floor room. While I walked down the hallway to our room, I immediately felt light headed and knew that since I have the gift of clairsentience (clear feeling), this was an indication of a very eventful night. I am also clairvoyant (clear seeing) and have mental telepathy but knew it would take more than these clairs to satisfy the general population of any type of haunting.

Tim was definitely prepared for this ghost hunt by a myriad of equipment-most of which I had no understanding. He was the scientist trying to make the appropriate distinction between haunt or hoax and I was the psychic trying to help by finding the spirits and understand why they couldn’t leave this hotel.

The night began with a bang by the presence of ghosts in the hallway across from the elevators on the first floor. The electromagnetic meter reading went from a 0 to 15 and stayed steady there for most of the night. I was so lightheaded and disoriented that I felt as though I would fall over every time I was in that vicinity but since there were so many people wandering the halls, it was too difficult to get any names, genders, or descriptions. Tim, on the other hand, had to remain neutral so he decided the meter was high because of the enormous amount of electricity in the area, including the massive wiring in the underground tunnels right below the flooring. Although I knew better, I decided to let it go and return after the ghost tour. 4 hours later we returned to the exact spot and the readings of the electromagnetic meter had gone down to a 0.

Tim has had his own experiences at this hotel and believes that it is definitely haunted but his analytical mind has to keep all of this investigation on the scientific level. I understand that most people need actual proof that they can either see or hear, and I also knew that my findings probably wouldn’t be able to do this unless I could get some response from the spirits recorded on his EVP.

The actual ghost tour definitely showed me the presence of a few ghosts that included two young children-a boy and a girl-that were both afraid and very sad, and a very angry man that wanted everyone to leave. Most of the earthbound spirits were located on the 5th floor in the very first few rooms we visited. The one that made the biggest impression and had the greatest effect on me was the scared little boy that seemed to be as drawn to me as I was to him. I was called into this room repeatedly by various reactions within my body; ie: severe headache as soon as I stepped in and immediate relief when leaving, light headed and general feelings of a paranormal presence. I asked Tim to bring his equipment in to verify my impressions. He went through the room with little or not readings so I asked him to give me his meter and EVP to hold. I knew the little boy was as close to me as he could get and wanted to see if he would eventually say something that could be heard by the human ear through his voice recorder. He was very shy and seemed to be looking for and desperately missing his mother. As soon as the meter was handed to me it spiked a very high reading so Tim left the room to see if I could get the little boy to talk. I tried to communicate with him but, as with all children when they are scared, they usually prefer not to talk. It broke my heart to see such pain and anguish so I called on Archangel Michael to help him find the white light so he could be reunited with his parents. The boy would not go for fears that only he knew but just as he was declining, Tim opened the door and the boy vanished. At that minute, the meter went back to a 0.

Although there were other “hot spots” in that same vicinity, this experience was the most daunting to me. The scared little boy would have found the peace and happiness that his soul deserves if he hadn’t been attached to the thought that going into the light would either prevent him from ever finding his mother or that he had already made his mother mad for not following her into the light the first time and feared the consequences.

The other two spirits I encountered that night were only brief but they left a feeling of loss, fear, sadness and/or anger, which is quite typical for earthbound spirits.

I would be very anxious and delighted to be able to return to this amazing hotel after their re-opening in 2012 and try to convince some of these spirits to let go of all attachments and return home where they will find all the love, peace and happiness that their soul deserves.

I would like to express my gratitude to Tim and hope it is the first of many ghost-hunting expeditions that we encounter!

Ghost at Belleview Biltmore

The very first time I investigated the Belleview Biltmore I saw a full blown apparition. It was a woman in a white dress and hat from what appeared to be the early 1900’s. If i would have captured that on film It would have rocked the paranormal community. Was it Maisie Plant? More about that day later…

Maisie Plant

Historic Belleview Biltmore Hotel

The following is my exploration of the historic Belleview Biltmore Hotel. Paranormal investigation of the historic and reportedly haunted Belleview Biltmore Resort in Clearwater, Florida by Tim Huck of Dark House Entertainment on Saturday, Feb 21st 2009. It inspired me to create a special website dedicated to this Historic Hotel and others I plan to visit. I consider myself lucky to be able to take over 300 pictures of the inside, outside and secret areas of the Belleview Biltmore Resort prior to it’s closing at the end of May, 2009. The Belleview Biltmore will remain closed for up to 3 years for renovation. I have not seen anything on the internet that provides this much detail of the inside not even their own website. I decided to present it myself for those who are curious and seek this information of this historic hotels past . I have heard many stories of hauntings, a suicide, seen paranormal photographs and television news investigations that gave me a calling to revisit the place where a few years ago I was hired to participate in a national television commercial for the Toronto Blue Jays inside the Belleview Biltmore Hotel and snapped my first orb photo when my DJ partner stood next to Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Lyle Overbay. I photoshopped it out because he thought it was a glitch in the camera, but I saved the original and here it is:

Orb by Tony Johnson with Lyle Overbay

Areas of the Hotel resemble the Overlook Hotel in The Shining which adds ambiance to my paranormal investigation.

The Shining like Biltmore Hotel

Due to overwhelming information I wish to provide I will be in a constant state of updating so check back often. If you have any personal experience or evidence you would like to provide contact me tim@clearwaterghosthunter.com Thanks to Orlando Ghost Tours who provided great information, EVP evidence, supplying EMF detectors

Leaving my mark at the Belleview's Haunted 4th Floor.

and access to parts of the Belleview Biltmore that is closed to the public. I highly recommend them. I will update this daily, check back often to hear my story. Here are some of the photos i took that night.

Maisie Plant

She Wore a Pearl Necklace.

Mae Cadwell Manwaring Plant, better known as Maisie, was born in 1878. Maisie was married to another man when she met Morton Plant, the son of Henry Plant, a self made transportation tycoon and land developer. Henry Plant built, among many other things, the first buildings of what is now the Belleview Biltmore Resort. Morton Plant was immediately “stricken” by Maisie and decided that he must marry her. He offered Maisie’s husband 8 million dollars–an offer to good to refuse. It was accepted, and Morton and Maisie were married in 1914. As a wedding gift, Morton gave Maisie a home, the Plant Mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Sometime in their relationship, Maisie saw a strand of perfectly matched Oriental pearls, with a price of $1.2 million dollars, which she just had to have. She asked Morton to buy them for her, but he felt they were too expensive and he refused to purchase them. Maisie had her heart set on the pearls and felt that the $1.2 million dollar asking price was fair, but Morton would not budge. So Maisie figured a way to get them on her own.

She bartered the purchase of the pearls with the owner, a Mr. Cartier. He gave Maisie the pearls and she gave him the Plant Mansion on Fifth Avenue, which subsequently became the House of Cartier. It is open to this day on that location. We are very sorry to say that somewhere, sometime, Maisie’s pearls just seem to have vanished. Cartier Jewelers would love to have them in their collection. Big question today is, still, where are Maisie’s pearls?

Maisie is rumored to have lost her treasured jewelry at the Biltmore. Some say her ghost is still walking the halls looking for her lost pearls.

Henry Plant

The Biltmore is four and a half stories, frame, three principal sections, each 400 feet long, broad verandahs built on enchanting landscape. It is the largest wood-frame building in Florida. Hotel constructed for Henry B. Plant, who developed the railway system on the Florida West Coast during the 1890s and sought to increase traffic by building tourist facilities.

John McEntee Bowman

In 1920 John McEntee Bowman purchased the hotel from the Plant Investment Company. John McEntee Bowman, was president of the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels Corp, international sportsman and owner of the Biltmore chain of hotels. the new name Belleview Biltmore Hotel. So for 85 years, the name Biltmore is associated with the Belleview. The name Hence the beginning ofBiltmore is tied in with so many other Biltmore hotels around the country also. Bowman developed several Biltmore Hotels through the country during this time period, all bearing the Biltmore name, which was said to be drawn from the Vanderbilt family estate of the same name in North Carolina. Other owners include Bernie Powell who owned the Biltmore for 42 years, Mido, the Jetha Brothers, Urdang and now Legg Mason.

Bernie Powell with his daughters (late 1940's)

This national treasure has enriched the lives of guests since 1897. It is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, and National Trust. Many famous dignitaries have been guests at this hotel including the President George Bush, President Jimmy Carter, President Gerald Ford, the former King of England, (the Duke of Windsor) the Vanderbilts, the Pew family of Sun Oil, the Studebakers, the DuPonts, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Lady Margaret Thatcher, baseball legends Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and entertainers Tony Bennett, Bob Dylan and Carol Channing. In World War II the hotel was closed to tourism, and the U.S. military moved in to train its troops. The windows were painted black so the enemycould not see the hotel at night.

Bob Dylan plays the Belleview Biltmore 4-22-1976

Resort will lay off 300

Published Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Biltmore Hotel photo by JIM DAMASKE

Instead, they’re linked to previously announced plans to close the 112-year-old hotel at the end of May to prepare for the landmark’s $100 million makeover, said Martin Smith, vice president and managing director of Belleview Biltmore Resort Ltd.

The layoffs, which include employees at the hotel’s Cabana Grill & Bar on Sand Key, coincide with seasonal layoffs, which usually affect about 30 to 40 workers during the hotel’s slower months.

“We’re going to have to say goodbye to a lot of great people,” Smith said.

Smith, who started meeting with workers this week to discuss the layoffs, said the resort is planning to host job fairs for the workers. And human resources staffers will work with employees to help them hone their interview and resume-writing skills, he said.

“I want them all to find jobs and take care of their families,” Smith said.

The hotel’s golf club will not close, and its employees will be spared. So will security and accounting workers, Smith said.

Meanwhile, renovations are in a holding pattern of sorts. A few residents have challenged Belleair leaders’ actions related to variances requested by the owner, Los Angeles-based Legg Mason Real Estate Investors, which bought the resort for nearly $30.3 million.

The legal challenge filed last summer stems from neighbors’ concerns about the location of the spa, across from condominiums. The neighbors allege town leaders showed favoritism toward the owner.

Last May, town leaders approved ambitious renovation and expansion plans for the historic resort. Plans include restoring the hotel’s main building and ballrooms, building a one-story spa west of the hotel, demolishing the much-maligned pagoda entrance and replacing parking lots with underground garages.

The owner could begin renovating the hotel, with the exception of the spa, if it chooses to do so, said Town Manager Micah Maxwell. But Joseph Penner, managing director of Legg Mason, said his company is awaiting the results of the challenge before moving forward. He said it was necessary to prepare for the project even if the appeal wasn’t resolved yet.

It’s not clear when the project will break ground. But the resort is slated to reopen in 2012, Smith said.

Lorri Helfand can be reached at lorri@sptimes.com or 445-4155.

Rare Video of Belleview Biltmore!