Secrets of the grand hotels: juicy stories are the lure to these tours

Sunset, Oct, 2004 by Lora J. Finnegan

"Oh yes, I can tell you about the murder," Tony Bissen whispers to us. His historical tour, at Honolulu's Sheraton Moana Surfrider, is one of several backstage tours offered at historic hotels around the West, from Yosemite's Ahwahnee to Spokane's Davenport. The tours (all but one open to nonguests) recount a little history and some really good gossip.

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Bissen leads us to the 1901 hotel's restored historic section. "This is where staff are said to have seen Mrs. Leland Stanford's ghost," he notes outside room 244. In 1905, Stanford University cofounder Jane Stanford checked in for a vacation, and perhaps to escape a conflict with university president David Starr Jordan.

One night Mrs. Stanford took a drink from her bottle of water and screamed. "She died a horrible death," Bissen says. "A doctor concluded she had been poisoned with strychnine." But an inquest, spurred by university trustees, found Mrs. Stanford died from "natural causes," Bissen notes, "so it's hard to say what happened."

It's a chilling tale. But it doesn't prevent us from wanting to check into the Sheraton Moana Surfrider for a good long stay.