THE BRIARCLIFF
Location: The address of the Briarcliff Hotel is 3674 Briarcliff Boulevard in Colorado Springs, Colorado, fifty miles south of Denver.
Description of Place: An intimidating four story structure with a four story clock tower on top, the Briarcliff is a Georgian-style stone structure containing over 200 rooms and twenty suites as well as full luxuries. The interior entails the opulence of the upper class elite with high ceilings, parquet floors, arched entry ways, grand furnishings and valuable antiques. Accommodations include meeting rooms, dance halls and two grand ballrooms. The hotel also has a full-service, world class-spa, state-of-the-art fitness center with indoor and outdoor pools, a golf clubhouse, restaurants and lounges and golf and tennis pro shops.
Ghostly Manifestations: Up until 1987, when writer David Hall faked his murder here, The Briarcliff might have been fated to be one of the most obscure haunted hotels in Colorado, forever trapped in the shadow of the far more notorious Overlook Hotel, sixty miles north in Sidewinder, Colorado. The hotel staff is not apt to talk publicly about the hauntings, preferring more to boast about about its more material attractions. Truth be told, haunted hotels are usually very popular and attract far more guests than their more earthly counterparts. There has yet to be a serious examination of the Briarcliff, and most of the stories coming from the location have been collected by covert means by interviewing employees both past and present.
To hear the most stories of the Briarcliff, all one has to do is seek out Rich Walker, who has been part of the maintenance staff since 1955 before the hotel reopening. Tenuously linked to Hall's faked murder, Walker was exonerated of prosecution for turning over state's evidence against Hall, and that's all he will ever tell about that moment of his life.
"The Briarcliff is alive." Walker is quick to remark. "The halls reverberate with sounds long after night falls, shadows pass through the location on a regular basis reflected by mirrors and windows and the ballroom rings alive with energy. It's basically a giant speaker, round you know, amplifying every sound in there. It's like a giant beast, with columns, mirrors and windows all through the damned place."
"If the Briarcliff has a heart, it's the Great Hall." The Great Hall is the vast room directly beyond the entrance way where guests congregate or peruse the artwork on the walls. The ceiling is twenty feet above, supported by arches and decorated with sculptures and paintings. The painting of John Warrenfield is at the north end with his wife's portrait at the south end. "I've been in there several times at night and seen shadows scurrying along the walls just out of the side of my eye. They always vanish when I try to look directly at them, and that painting of John Warrenfield creeps me out to this day. I don't know why, but it intimidates me, as if he's looking at me, and when you look at it, you get the feeling his spirit is in it, looking back from it."
According to Walker, Susan Warrenfield, the granddaughter of the hotel builder, has seen her grandfather's spirit several times in the great Hall, even once becoming so unnerved to be in there that she can running out convinced that he had chased her from right out of his painting. Susan is also the assistant manager and she tries to stifle all the stories coming out about the hotel's alleged hauntings. Several guests stay with success without experiencing a thing, but every so often, there's an odd report of water taps turning on unattended, sounds of rapping at a door where no one is and even of doors quickly locking behind guests. A few guests have described the sound of piano music from the main floor music room, but when anyone goes in there, there is no one there. In fact, piano music comes from places of the hotel where there are no pianos.
"I'd describe it as that old tinny, pre-Prohibition-era music as you'd hear from the old fashioned Victrola players." Rich Walker adds. "Guests standing up in the tower have heard it up in the tower and have come down looking for it. One gentlemen asked the front desk for the name of the tune so he could get a copy of the sheet music, but no one had any idea what music he was hearing."
Some guests of David Hall in the hotel have admitted to having traumatic and distressing dreams from emotional and soul-wrenching periods of their lives. Whether this is to suggest the hotel's atmosphere plays on the fears and tragic memories of its guests is undetermined, but one of his guests leapt from his bed and ran screaming into the hall that his room was on fire, but no signs of scorching or smoke was found, and the false alarm was attributed to a very lucid and humiliating dream. Publisher Jordan White felt he was visited by the apparition of his son, who had died in adolescence without ever visiting the Briarcliff. Even while wide awake, he heard his son's voice calling him. Other images have been more horrific, such as the image of a person falling from the tower or the presence of a body on the ground.
"In 1987..." Susan Warrenfield discreetly admits. "I saw and heard the ghost of my grandfather plummeting to his death. Seven other people saw and heard it at the same time and rushed to where the body would have landed, but there was nothing there. Just a patch of dead grass which hasn't grown correctly since my grandfather committed suicide in 1936."
History: The hotel was built around 1905 to 1907 by John Warrenfield as a gift to his wife as most men of industry do. John Warrenfield had been a captain of industry who started as a lawyer, became a judge and retired to a leisurely life as a hotel financier. However, despite all his work, he reportedly caught her in bed with another man and killed them both, later taking his life by jumping to his death from the clock tower. The hotel stood empty and abandoned for twelve years, its deed held in limbo by the courts until 1958 when it reopened through the Warrenfield heirs. The renovation closed off the Warrenfield's old bedroom as well as the original staircase to the tower. Modern additions over the years include an Olympic-class swimming pool, a second golf course and an on-site casino. The hotel has been guest to celebrities such as Jack Nicholson, Angelina Jolie, Reese Witherspoon, Elizabeth Montgomery, Robert Conrad, Clarke Gable and horror actress Nora McGuire as well as politicians and presidents such as Jimmy Carter and William Howard Taft. Local writer David Hall based his novel, "The Resort," on the Briarcliff.
Identity of Ghosts: In addition to John Warrenfield's forlorn, love struck phantom, there have been a few other sightings of phantom employees reported as well as non-existent guests in empty rooms seen from balconies and drifting through hallways including a spectral nun, an African-American coachman in a dark suit, an empty wheelchair rolling through unused corridors and even poltergeist activity in the kitchen. The identity of these extraneous revenants have yet to be identified, but at least one of them may be Amelia Warrenfield herself. A few guests have reported seeing tears running down her portrait in the Great Hall.
Source/Comments: Perry Mason: the Case of the Sinister Spirit (1987) - Architecture and history based on the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado where the movie was filmed. Phenomenon based on the Haw Branch Plantation in Amelia, Virginia.