One of the ghosts stories of the Plaza Hotel comes in October of 1992. They were published in the New Mexican newspaper and written by T.J. Sullivan.
Byron T. Mills, who owns The Plaza Hotel in the early 1900s, is believed to have met a violent end in the building and now might be The Apparition that spends its days In the west wing.
Katherine “Kak” Slick, a co-owner of the Plaza, sad stories of experiences with the ghost, affectionately referred to as Byron T., abound.
One of the most common is of a vase of flowers that, in the presence of several members of the hotel staff, was lifted up off the counter and thrown to the floor after the outside doors open with a gust of wind.
“The staff was very nervous about the happening,” Slick said.
There also are stories of a woman ghost whose presence is noted by the smell of orange blossom perfume.
“I think there’s a presence here, but I think that lots of historic buildings have presences,” Slick said. “I like to think that ghosts go back and haunt the places they like. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Certainly, unearthly tales gain merit at the Plaza upon notice of the large, dark stain on the hardwood floor near the base of the stairs, a stain some people believe was left by blood. Currently, it’s hidden by a rug.
“It’s hard for me to imagine what you would put in that spot to stain the floor that much,” said Slick. “I suppose it could have been a blood stain, she said.
The main ghost story that is recalled today was published by the website Fabulous Travel on August 6th, 2007.
“Lauren Addario doesn’t spend a lot of time at the Plaza Hotel anymore. During the 1990s, she worked in the hotel restaurant, the Land Mark Grill, and her late husband worked in the property’s maintenance department.
She still remembers the history of the Plaza – originally built in 1882; closed and reopened several times over the years; popular backdrop during silent movie era; and restored during the 1940s after its former owner, Byron T. Mills, died. She also remembers the ghost.
“I was willing to dismiss it at first,” Addario said of her 1997 experience. “But a woman stayed in the same room a year later and described the same experience.”
It was during the winter of that year, and Addario and her late husband were staying in room 316 of the hotel. Her husband was on call for heating problems, and he was out of the room during an early morning issue with the furnace.
“A little while after he left, I heard the door open, and I felt someone sit on the edge of the bed,” Addario recalled, thinking it was her husband returning to the room. “But something seemed askew, and I felt the bed release like someone got up. ?Then, I heard someone pacing at the foot of the bed. Whatever this was, I felt the bed depress and then release again.”
Addario now was nervous and agitated because she knew it wasn’t her husband. It was someone – or something – else. She didn’t’ want to reach across for the phone because whoever was in the room was between her and the phone.
“I was afraid to move, “she said. So she lay there for about two hours until the sun came up, her husband returned, and the noises stopped.
Initially, she chalked it up to a dream that seemed real and told no one of her experience until a year later when a hotel guest reported a similar occurrence. That’s when she stepped forward with her tale of the supernatural.
“Oh, that’s just Byron T.,” came the response from a coworker.
Mills, whose name adorns the Plaza Hotel’s bar, owned the property in the 1940s until his death in 1947. His death put an end to the sad era for the hotel, during which much of the furnishings were sold, and the property was used as a dormitory for university students. Mills was apparently making plans to demolish the building.
Because Mills died at the Elks Lodge in town, no one really knows why Byron T. keeps coming back to the Plaza Hotel. Some say he feels guilty about the way he treated the Plaza, and he’s looking for redemption. Over the years, numerous hotel guests have reported eerie visitors in the middle of the night, and Byron T.’s Saloon workers still hear footsteps and smell cigar smoke after hours in the empty bar.”