ARTICLES: Funeral Home Phantoms: Ghosts at the Blue Room by Michael Gavin
Why is it that some partiers at Orlando’s Blue Room have sensed more than they bargained for when they visit? Guests and performers have felt an uncomfortable, foreboding sensation; heard strange sounds and even had difficulty breathing in second floor rooms of the Pine Street nightclub. Where do the disembodied whispers and phantom footsteps come from? A few have even seen the vision of a woman and young child wandering the upstairs halls. What ties these apparitions have with this unassuming, nearly 100-year old building? The answers to these curiosities are locked in the past?
The face of Downtown Orlando has changed drastically over the past 125 years. Conveniences we take for granted were unheard of in the town’s infancy. One necessity that we take for granted is how we care for our loved ones when the pass.
In 1880’s Orlando that responsibility fell upon Mr. Edgar A. Richards. He was Orlando’s first undertaker. His responsibility was quite simple, actually. He was a man skilled in craft of woodworking. So, in addition to making furniture, he also made caskets. These he offered for sale, alongside the furniture he crafted, in small shop located near the corner of what is now Central Boulevard and Magnolia Avenue in downtown Orlando.
The customs and methods of burial have also changed dramatically over the years. At the time of Richard’s tenure, there was no viable method of preservation, so burials usually happened within a mere 12-24 hours of passing. These impromptu funerals would leave little time for planning and even less time to notify the community of the individual’s passing. Since newspapers of the period needed much more notice than they do today, the most common method of notification was placing a card, announcing the funeral, at local commercial establishments. That all changed when Mr. Elijah Hand moved to Orlando.
When Mr. Hand partnered with Mr. Richards, he brought a valuable tool to the business. Elijah Hand was the first in Orlando to use the practice called embalming. This relatively new procedure allowed families of the deceased more time to adjust and plan for the internment of their loved ones.
Eventually Richards left the business. Mr. Hand decided it was time to relocate the business. However, the Magnolia hotel, which sat squarely on the Pine Street site that Hand had in mind, presented a small problem. A problem easily resolved by the purchase of the old hotel. Upon that purchase, Hand moved structure back from the curb and built his furniture store and funeral parlor. The two-story, red brick building was built right onto the front of the Magnolia in 1907. The old hotel found new life as a warehouse for the business.
Elijah Hand would maintain this funeral parlor and furniture store at this site until 1920. At that time business relocated in a brand new, “modern” facility right across the street (to what is now the UCF building). Since his son had taken over the business, the name of this $20,000 funeral home was updated to reflect the change. It was (and is) called the Carey Hand Funeral Home.
The Elijah Hand building underwent several transformations. Over the years the site became home to many different business. Those included another furniture store, a day care, a school that taught English as a second language, and its present day use as a nightclub. Eventually the Magnolia Hotel portion of the building was torn down (today, only glass wall is evidence that there was more to the north side of the establishment). In 1982, renovations included the addition of an awning to the building’s front (restoring appearances to resemble its 1907 origins).
So many have passed through the walls of the Elijah Hand Building, it’s not hard to imagine her as being haunted! Most of the activity is focused on the second floor. This second floor activity makes sense, especially since the burial preparations were done on the first floor. Another reason for the strange occurrences might can be tied to what psychic Lynne Rader (hostess of the popular cable call in show, Cosmic Zone Plus) learned on a recent tour of the site. At one point she sensed that several bodies had been stacked in the second floor halls! Her impressions also lead the revelation of a male spirit named Robert. What Lynne was not told, at the time of the investigation, is that a child of one of the former owners played on the upper floor with an imaginary friend; a friend who is named Mr. Roberts. The female spirit occasionally sighted in the halls of the second floor passed before her daughter did, and is now reunited with the child in the afterlife.
Paranormal investigators from the Central Florida Ghost Society have turned up some very interesting photographs of the site. These include several spirit orbs (these energy orbs are what experts believe to be spirits in transit).
The Blue Room underwent another renovation in late 2001. It is possible that this may have calmed some of the activity in the building. The only to be sure is to find out for yourself. . .
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