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Built in 1915, the Val Verde is not as large
as other hostelries in New Mexico, but from a stand point of beauty
and convenience, she stands without a peer. It contains sixty guest
rooms, a commodious dining room, a kitchen, a spacious lobby and
writing rooms.
Designed by noted architect Henry Trost.
Located between the Santa Fe Railroad Depot and the Plaza, the hotel
was popular with traveling salesmen and visitors to town. Since
the 1980s, it has been extensively restored and now houses shops,
a restaurant, and rented rooms. The restaurant features a unique
panorama of views along the Santa Fe Railroad's route from El Paso
to Albuquerque.
In present times the rooms are rented out as apartments, with two
of the old rooms composing one apartment. The kitchen and dining
room were converted to a restaurant while the old lobby is now a
bar.
During its history, a total of 10 people
have died in various locations in the hotel. Five of these were
suicides. The last suicide occurred just after our second investigation
of the Val Verde. We were allowed access to the room where the suicide
occurred to check for any possible activity. One orb and several
suspect EM fields were discovered. Several of these suspect fields
were near the area where the body was found. The body decomposed
for several days before it was found.
With the exception of a few "grander"
suites, the rooms share two common bathrooms located on the second
floor. Each room is equipped with its own shower. Inside the building,
one stair case leads to the upper floor.
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This door is locked so access to the second floor
is by two fire escapes located at the rear of the building. These are the
stairs that the tenants use for access to their apartments.
Five men burned to death in the boiler room, located
under the present day bar, while performing maintenance on it. The scars
from the fire are still visible in the Boiler room today.
Bartenders hear a thumping sound under the floor
of the bar. Many believe it is the deceased workers who died in the fire
banging on the ceiling with shovels or other tools. Some other eyewitness
accounts include;
Cindé Trott, a 10-year Val Verde waitress,
said one day another waitress who no longer works there heard a sinister
voice say, “How are you my darling?”
“She started crying,” Trott said.
Another time, Trott said, she was in the waitress
station and a pitcher sitting securely on top of the ice freezer flew
off the top and broke a glass above the sink several feet away.
Trott isn’t the only employee who’s had a haunting
experience working a the Val Verde.
“A few times I’ve been down in the basement I’ve
had the impression somebody’s behind me,” said waiter Chris Parra.
Val Verde employee Fran Calderon said a woman in
a blue dress and a man wearing a white shirt will make an appearance in
the bar.
Calderon said a Val Verde manager once saw a “weird
light” in one of the rooms at the steakhouse and felt a bizarre static
electricity.
“It made the hair on the back of their neck stand
up and it made their skin kind of red,” she said. “It’s a weird feeling
you get. It’s not scary, but you can actually feel their (the ghosts’)
presence. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”
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We
started our investigation at 10:30pm by searching the area near
the upstairs entry. Several interesting EM fields were found in
the south west hallway and near the entrance to the stairs leading
into the hotel's lobby.
After
photographing the area well, we moved downstairs and positioned
a IR video camera at the top of the stairwell. This was the location
where an apparition of a young woman has been sighted by customers
and staff.
We
then moved back upstairs and continued searching the second floor.
We especially focused on a room where the tenant reported that objects
were being moved around his room by some unseen force. We found
a short lived EM field that measured 8 milligauss near the east
wall but the remainder of the room had normal background readings.
During
our search upstairs, the camera picked up several oddities in the
dark upper portion of the stairwell. |
Video
Click
the images to view the video
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