The True Story of The Mysterious Cecil Hotel

During the early 1920s, William Banks Hanner and a few of his colleagues decided to construct a hotel in Los Angeles, California. William and his fellow hoteliers possessed magnificent blueprints for this building, and it was inspired by the French Beaux Arts style of architecture. The hotel took three years to build and consisted of 700 rooms, complete with stained glass structures, a marble lobby, and luxurious interior plants. Initially, William and his partners invested over $1 million into what is now known as the Cecil Hotel. 

Los Angeles, California was first established in the United States in September 1781, and it took almost 150 years of development before the Cecil Hotel came into the historical timeline of L.A. By the 1920s, the industrial revolution had passed and L.A. was no longer a colony, but a prosperous city. 

Pictured below is one of the first official advertisements for the Hotel Cecil, which was meant to attract different crowds to Los Angeles. The idea for the hotel was thought up by three hoteliers and took a total of three years to build. The hotel consisted of 14 floors and 700 rooms when it was completed. 

William Banks Hanner, Robert H. Schops, and Charles L. Dix were thrilled to design and decorate the Cecil Hotel, and they hired the perfect designer to carry out their dreams. Loy Lester Smith was the original designer for the Hotel Cecil, and pictured below is the marble lobby, which still looks the same today. 

Business at the Cecil Hotel was booming after it first opened in 1927, although the Great Depression put a sudden halt to the success. The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1941, and it was a significant point in time for the Hotel Cecil. The hotel experienced a decline starting in 1932, and its popularity didn't rise again until the 1940s. 

Nowadays, the Cecil Hotel is known for its mysterious and violent history, and the tragedies had occurred since the opening of the hotel. To everyone's surprise, the first murder occurred the year that the hotel opened, and dozens more followed. 

Not much is known about the founders of the Cecil Hotel, although historians do know that William B. Hanner was born in North Carolina and became dedicated to the hotel business when he moved to California. William traveled around the United States and was known as a businessman. 

In May 1939, another mysterious event unfolded at the Cecil Hotel when a sailor committed suicide at the hotel after consuming lethal amounts of poison. The sailor was known as 39-year-old Erwin C. Neblett, and a housekeeper was the one who reported the event to the police after she found the corpse. 

Pictured below is Elizabeth Short, who was nicknamed the Black Dahlia due to her beautiful black hair and the black clothing she sported. Short was an aspiring actress, and even though her body was not found inside the Cecil Hotel, the hotel is closely linked to her violent death. 

One of the most devastating suicides that took place at the Cecil Hotel was the one of Helen Gurnee. Helen was a 55-year-old woman who worked at a stationary firm nearby, and she stayed at the Cecil Hotel for multiple days before she killed herself on October 23rd, 1954. 

Pauline Otton died on October 12th, 1962, after she took her own life after staying at the Hotel Cecil. Right before she committed this act, she and her husband were fighting at the hotel. After the argument escalated, Pauline decided to construct a suicide note and jump out of the window to fall onto Main Street.

Goldie Osgood was a staple citizen in the L.A. community, and she was known for being a long-term resident at the Hotel Cecil. She was a kind lady who loved feeding the birds in the surrounding area, although living at the Cecil Hotel may have contributed to her unexpected and gruesome death. 

Over 80 deaths have occurred at the Hotel Cecil since its opening in 1927, and some of these cases remain unsolved due to their suspicious nature. The hotel is known for harboring horror, and in total, there are about 16 mysterious deaths that remain unsolved that occurred at this location. 

Pictured below is the serial killer who devastated California in the mid-1980s, Richard Ramirez, who was known as the "Night Stalker." Richard was known for breaking into people's homes, torturing, and murdering them. In total, Richard killed 13 people and is possibly responsible for countless other deaths. 

Skid Row is a neighborhood in Los Angeles that consists of homeless people, and it is right by the Hotel Cecil. Skid Row is almost as old as the hotel itself, for it first started to develop after the Great Depression. As people became extremely poor, they would result to living on the street, and this place in Los Angeles was easy to call home. 

The Cecil Hotel is known for its advertisement on the side of the building, and the sign is just as old as it looks! This representative sign for the hotel was constructed in 1927, and it is still standing almost a century later. The sign has changed since its original construction, but only minimally. 

It is mind-blowing to think about how the Hotel Cecil has been a place of mystery since the beginning, for the murders, violence, suicides, and overdoses have not ceased since the opening of the hotel in 1927. The crime never seems to end, and citizens see cops and ambulances at the hotel more often than they'd like to admit. 

The Cecil Hotel has had many owners over the years, although one of the biggest shifts in management occurred in 2007. In May 2007, Fred Cordova bought this property from previous owners John Deluca and Dale Lohrer, who had made changes to the hotel before they sold it. 

In total, 80 people or more have died at the Hotel Cecil since 1927, and the numbers only continue to rise. Historians are unsure of how many people exactly have died here since the hotel is such a mysterious place. Also, it is a mystery as to how many people were murdered in the building but were not found there. 

When the hotel opened in 1927, it was meant to be a place for businessmen and tourists, although the Cecil Hotel didn't become an extreme tourist location until after all of the violence had taken place. Although, originally, people only came to visit for the beautiful decor and outstanding service. 

Some of the most violent guests at the hotel had stayed on the 14th floor of the Cecil Hotel, so it is concluded that that is one of the most mysterious and spooky places in the building. For example, even though Richard Ramirez never allegedly killed anyone in the hotel, he was often seen going into his room covered in blood. 

Despite over 80 plus deaths occurring at this location, the owners of the hotel refuse to shut it down or fully close it to the public for reasons other than construction. The main reason for not tearing the building down is that it is a historic landmark. 

Shown below is some of the decor that is still in the hotel, which stays true to its original design and purpose. So, despite the crimes that have cursed the halls, the Cecil Hotel still has a charming and beautiful decor that is true to the intended Beaux Arts style. 

Historians have a hard time deciphering if Main Street in Los Angeles had an impact on the Cecil Hotel, or if the hotel influenced the development of what we now know as Skid Row. Some argue that the hotel only became a place for criminals after the Great Depression and the development of Skid Row, while some theorists suggest otherwise. 

Many people believe that most of the deaths at the Hotel Cecil were a result of murder, although those were only some of the more extreme cases. Especially in more modern years, most people find the Cecil Hotel as a suitable place to take their lives by either drug overdose or jumping out one of the windows. 

Over the past few decades, the Hotel Cecil has strayed far from its original purpose which was established by the founders of this hotel. William, Charles, and Robert originally built the hotel in 1927 to serve international businessmen and guests. To guarantee success, they made the Hotel Cecil a middle-class hotel with stunning beauty.  

Again, most of the construction done on the hotel over the past few decades was out of necessity, for people didn't want to tamper with the earliest design that was put in place in 1927. Certain antiques can still be found in the hotel, such as the clock pictured below, and most of the "untouched" places are in the lobby and common areas. 

Every single time a crime scene has been confirmed at the Cecil Hotel, the investigation would be taking place while journalists swarmed the area. After all the commotion had settled down, and the corpse was taken away, someone would have to clean up those crime scenes so that the hotel could return to its normal function. 

Since the development of cell phones and computers, the true stories of the mysterious Cecil Hotel have spread rapidly across the internet. People come from all around the world to stay a night in this hotel and then report their findings to the online community. 

If you walk into the Cecil Hotel now, you will still be greeted with the magnificent marble lobby, potted plants, and stained glass, along with a friendly face at the check-in desk. On a normal day, the Cecil Hotel is like any other hotel in Los Angeles, other than the fact that it is right by Skid Row. 

The Cecil Hotel has been a part of Los Angeles for almost 100 years, so when people were talking about tearing it down, the Los Angeles City Council was quick to meet and discuss the fate of the hotel. Overall, the council decided that the hotel was too historically significant to tamper with. 

For many years, the Cecil Hotel has been providing affordable housing to those who have been stuck on Skid Row, and the organization is known as the Skid Row Housing Trust. Some people are surprised by this connection seeing that Skid Row led to somewhat of a decline for the hotel.

Ghost Adventures is one of the longest-running paranormal TV series and they have explored places from all across the world in an attempt to find lost spirits and mysterious activity. When the Cecil Hotel reopened after light renovations in 2021, the cast knew that they had to film here.

In 2011, a major change occurred at the Cecil Hotel after a group of authorities decided to rename a section of the hotel to "Stay on Main." The main motivation behind this was to attempt to bury the dark and mysterious history of the Cecil Hotel.

When the Cecil Hotel was rebranded, the "Stay on Main" portion of the hotel was supposed to be used for struggling youth in Los Angeles who were looking for a home. The hotel was then split up into different sections for long-term residents and then guests. 

Pictured below is a part of the lobby at the Cecil Hotel, which was constructed in 1927, and this hotel is still worth visiting to witness the original art style which originated in Paris, France. A significant part of the Beaux Arts style includes marble, and the hotel is full of marble floors, pillars, and walls. 

It is difficult to believe that all 14 floors of the Cecil Hotel are still in full operation and stable even though the building is almost 100 years old and in a popular place in Los Angeles. The building has been used so much since it was open, yet it has only needed a few significant renovations over the years. 

Currently, you cannot experience the beautiful architecture that is present in the Hotel Cecil such as pictured below. There is a myriad of factors that have contributed to this, with only a fraction of them being the insane and often vicious events that take place in the rooms of the famous hotel. 

Pictured below is the original advertisement for the Cecil Hotel which has been on the side of the building since 1927. In 2022, for the first time in history, the sign was whitewashed in an attempt to put up a billboard. Historians and L.A. citizens were furious, and the vandalism resulted in consequences.

Over the past 96 years, the Cecil Hotel has developed one of the most complex and mysterious histories that continues to shock people to this day. Historians and the city council fight for the historical landmark while others protest the obscenities that have taken place in the building.