As Providence's Graduate hotel turns 100, Amy Russo checks into all those spooky rumors
Whether you’re looking to be wowed by celebrity sightings, stunned by architecture or spooked by a rumored past of satanic rituals, murders and suicides, Providence’s Graduate hotel has something for everyone.
Unfortunately for you ghost hunters, it’s likely that the doom and gloom has more of a foothold in folklore than in reality.
As this month marks the building’s 100th anniversary, I dug into its past and the cast of characters who walked its halls, including my grandparents, Frank and Theresa Russo, on their wedding night in 1948. Somewhere buried in boxes is an old postcard from the hotel’s days as the Biltmore. What remains now is the beaming red sign on its roof, and an oral history, some fact, some fiction.
All in all, it makes for a great story.
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Devil in the details of hotel's financing
One of the hotel's biggest claims to fame is its origin, as it was designed by architectural firm Warren & Wetmore, whose credits include New York City’s Grand Central Station. However, legends about its financing likely got the history all wrong.
A quick Google search produces a list of blogs claiming that a Johan Leisse Weisskopf paid for the construction. Oh, and he was supposedly a Satanist. Even more suspicious for the superstitious is the chicken coop that was once housed on the roof.
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Providence resident Amanda Blount, who spent the pandemic performing hundreds of hours of research for her upcoming book, "Meet Me At The Biltmore," said she was unable to find any record of the devil’s advocate, even with the help of a genealogist.
“We changed all sorts of spellings,” Blount recalled. “We tried to find anybody who was like that who matched his age, description, name. I think that probably is local lore.”
Turns out the story has been passed around in what might just be a bad game of telephone.
“I reached out to a number of people who wrote the blogs, and their response was, ‘Oh, I saw it on this other blog,’” Blount said.
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Blount’s research, which included about 11,000 Providence Journal articles pulled from the archives, made clear that the hotel’s construction was actually financed by a massive city-led public funding effort that was among the first of its kind.
“They went door-to-door all over the city and asked people to donate a dollar, $5, $100, whatever they could to the construction of the Biltmore, and they ended up raising several million dollars this way, which is an astronomical amount of money in 1921,” Blount said.
As for the chicken coop, it was installed by the hotel’s first manager, who wanted fresh farm-to-table dinners for guests. Doesn’t exactly scream animal sacrifice, unless you’re a vegetarian.
Are there really ghosts among the guests?
Blount didn’t find records of any murders either, though she did locate a report of one suicide in the 1940s by a woman who leaped from a window. Later, panicked guests repeatedly called the front desk reporting visions of figures falling outside, yet each time, no one was found below.
That’s perhaps the closest thing to a ghost story that exists within these walls. Just ask general manager Scott Williams, who was stationed on a 24-hour watch with colleagues when the hotel was shuttered earlier in the pandemic.
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“I can say that none of the three of us saw anything during that time, unfortunately,” Williams said. “The first few months it was kind of nerve-wracking, like, ‘[Anybody] see a ghost? And then, after the first few months, it’s like, ‘All right, I want to see something now.’”
Nonetheless, for those of you who wish to believe, staff members and guests have reported hearing doors slamming, among other noises that may generally occur in a hotel. Sorry, folks.
VIP sightings, from rock royalty to the GOAT
If you’re seeking fact-based excitement, look no further than the hotel’s longtime employees, such as banquet captain Desiree Rinaldi, who has worked at the hotel for more than three decades.
Some 10 years into the job, she received the surprise of a lifetime.
“My boss comes in and he goes, 'I need you to go down to the Falstaff Room and wait on somebody that’s in there,’” Rinaldi said. “I’m like, ‘OK, it’s no big deal.’ I walk in and it’s Diana Ross.”
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Rinaldi doesn’t remember what she ordered. She just remembers being shocked.
But in Rinaldi’s world, it’s all in a day’s work. She’s also waited on Anthony Quinn, Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, and Tom Brady, whose friend was married at the hotel.
“I’ll tell you, as long as he was there, his entire team that was there with him was on their best behavior,” Rinaldi said. “And as soon as he left, they’re like, ‘All right, we can drink now.’”
To say nothing of the hotel’s other guests, from JFK to The Rolling Stones and the Von Trapp family, who filled seven rooms.
That’s one hotel with one thousand stories.
Providence Journal staff writer Amy Russo, a transplanted New Yorker, is looking for new ways to experience her adopted state. If you have suggestions for this column, email her at amrusso@providencejournal.com.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence's Graduate hotel turns 100, rumored to be spooky
