Ghost Tour

by Claryn Vaile

  “But how would that work? Do the spirits come flowing out of the hotel water faucets, swirling into the toilet bowls, or what?”

  Lochlan laughed. “Sounds like a tight squeeze. And a bit undignified, don’t you think?” Then sensing her earnestness, he said, “I’m no expert in such things. But my friends, who seem to intuitively understand the workings of the spiritual realm, might not be so quick to dismiss such possibilities. Come to think of it, some of our best ‘ghost’ stories happened in or around our restrooms.”

  “I know,” Rebecca replied, and her story of Mr. Everett came out in a rush. “But the ghost he thought he saw didn’t emerge from the Silver Spoon ladies room after all. It came out of the blank wall by the china display case at the entry. Do you know what’s inside that wall?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. It’s a weird triangular shaft surrounding the old sub-basement boiler steampipe. Intersects every floor and goes all the way up above the roof. Runs right alongside your archives here, as it happens.”

  Lochlan reached out and knocked on the wall to the right of her door. The hollow sound was tinged with a dull metallic ring. “No reason you would have noticed it. Hasn’t been functional in decades. But it’s still in there.”

  Rebecca had to sit down. The engineer perched on the vinyl upholstered footrest across from her. “Lochlan, do you think that smokestack could have been – could still be – a conduit for spirits?”

  He stroked his graying beard, pondering the question as seriously as she had posed it. At length he said, “It could be. Absolutely could be. The steampipe is in a direct line with the old boiler and its artesian source. It’s a straight shot from the aquifer, intersecting every floor, and ultimately opening out into the heavens.

  “Not sure what spirits look for in an inter-dimensional passageway,” he confessed, “but in my estimation, that steampipe seems a natural route from realms below to realms above – and beyond.”

  Chapter 4

  For the first half-hour of every tour, Rebecca skirted the atrium lobby, shepherding her group from one side to another, building up to the breathtaking architectural centerpiece as to the crescendo of a symphony. They stepped up now to the balcony railing on the mezzanine level, overlooking the majestic lobby in all its glory.

  The hotel’s striking Romanesque façade only hinted at The Keep’s interior splendor. Amber-hued and warm, sunlight infused the soaring lobby with a golden glow, drawing the eyes up and up and up. A magnificent stained glass skylight topped the eighth floor, 100 feet above. Intricate filigreed wrought-iron panels decorated six tiers of open balconies encircling the floors below it. Stone columns rose from the lobby to the mezzanine level, supporting Florentine arches lit by starburst bulbs. On one side of the stunning space, the Grand Staircase wove in and out between guestroom floors.

  First time visitors to the hotel marveled unabashedly at the atrium splendor, and through their eyes, Rebecca appreciated anew the beauty to which she had become almost inured in five years of exposure. Even experienced world travelers confessed they had not seen its like anywhere outside of Europe.

  Near the center, a circular stone fountain burbled soothingly. Fed by the artesian well, the fountain was the atrium lobby’s focal point, one of the few features unadulterated since The Keep’s opening day. Water spilled out over the lip of a large Grecian urn and cascaded over its rim with a musical gurgle into a circular pool of golden onyx.

  Flanking the urn on two sides were copper griffins, as big as Rottweilers, verdigris-green with age. Their bronze swords still shone in the light filtered through the stained-glass ceiling. The mythological creatures on opposite sides of the pool faced outwards from the center, at right angles to the original Grand Entrance. Each stood balanced on one foot atop a crown. With their other feet lifted and swords raised at attention by their sides, they appeared ready to battle anyone who approached. The tips of their wings touched above the urn, framing it.

  “I think you’ll agree this atrium is the most impressive part of the Griffins Keep. All this beautiful stone is not marble, as many people guess, but golden onyx. You generally think of onyx as black, but it does occur very rarely in other colors. Have any of you visited our State Capitol building? It features a unique rose onyx in the wainscoting. This golden onyx was found in a quarry in Old Mexico. More than 1400 surface feet of the stone was used in The Keep, depleting that quarry entirely. So you won’t see onyx of this unique color anyplace else.”

  “Why did they go all the way to Mexico for stone when there’s so much nearby in the Colorado mountains?” a guest asked.

  Rebecca had wondered that herself. “It does seem like a lot of unnecessary transportation expense, doesn’t it? There must have been something special about this particular stone that greatly appealed to the builders. Besides the unusual shade, natural variations within the stone create interesting patterns when cut and polished like this.”

  “Are there pictures in your stone?” a guest asked. “Like at the Capitol, our guide pointed out one pattern that looked like a butterfly and another that looked sorta like George Washington, if you used your imagination.”

  “Only one ‘picture’ that I know of,” Rebecca said, pointing toward the Grand Staircase. “On the wall to the left of the stairs, just about four feet up – Can you see what might be taken for an open eye?”

  Some guests nodded. Others shook their heads. Moving on…

  “As I’m sure many of you know, ancient Roman villas were often built around an open center courtyard called an atrium. Our architect just took that idea eight stories high.”

  The visitors looked up with appreciation and amazement.

  “Of course, you see open lobbies in hotels all over the place nowadays. But in 1890, this was an unprecedented innovation called ‘daylighting’ the interior space. The stained glass skylight is original, created and installed by a local glass company that’s still in business with a fourth generation of the same family.”

  All leaned over the railing to take in the intricate ceiling, aglow with jewel tones regardless of outside weather conditions.

  “Wouldn’t it be awful if that glass cracked and fell!” a young woman on the tour gasped.

  “Little chance of that,” the historian assured them all. “The skylight is suspended between our eighth and ninth floors. Then, on the roof itself, there’s a translucent protective structure with sloping sides that catches snow, hail, dead birds – anything that might damage the stained glass. So it’s quite safe up there. It’s not on the roof, but it’s all natural light that filters through it.”

  The transcendent heart of the Griffins Keep never failed to impress.

  “As you can see, today and most days, from noon until 4:00, our atrium lobby is the setting for Afternoon Tea, a formal but delightful affair with three-tiered trays of tiny sandwiches, tiny petit fours, and scones with clotted cream.”

  Pianists performing throughout the afternoon sometimes made it difficult for the tour guests to hear Rebecca. But live music accompanying Tea was a beloved tradition she wouldn’t think of changing.

  Directing their attention next to the far side of the lobby, Rebecca continued, “Have a look at the entrance to The Spa across the way. Our spa is one of our more recent additions. But as you look at that stunning onyx entrance, can you imagine a fireplace? A big, big, fireplace? Because that’s what it was in the hotel’s early years. Over that huge mantel, there used to be a third griffin, just like the two in our fountain. I think they should bring him back, don’t you?”

  The group murmured mixed opinions on the prospect.

  “What’s the deal with the griffins, anyway? They seem to be all around the hotel -- in The Keep logo, the wallpaper, the elevator doors, the stained glass windows -- like a combination lion and eagle,” a guest observed.

  “Well, besides the obvious connection with our founder’s name, mythological griffins were the guardians of mountain gold treasures. And of course, there was a lot of
gold being mined in the Colorado Rockies at the time the hotel was built. Many of our earliest patrons built their fortunes on the output of those mines.”

  Hesitating a moment before venturing into the realm of sheer speculation, Rebecca continued, “There are those who claim that, when The Keep was being constructed, a huge treasure of mountain gold was buried somewhere below the foundation, and that these griffins have been guarding it ever since.” People always enjoyed this idea.

  “I choose to believe that,” Rebecca invariably felt compelled to add, “based on nothing but legend. Please don’t come back with picks and shovels and start tearing up the lobby floor in search of it.”

  “Are you going to tell us about the upside-down railing?” Someone had actually read the Art and Architecture of the Griffins Keep brochure in their guest room. Those who hadn’t cast Rebecca puzzled glances.

  “It’s not the railing, per se,” she corrected the enquirer. “These decorative panels surrounding all the atrium balconies are another feature of Italian Renaissance architecture. As you look at a single one of these panels, you can see that there’s a definite top and bottom to the filigree design.”

  The tour takers took note.

  “For some unknown reason, out of 740 of these panels installed in the atrium, one was installed upside down. It’s almost impossible to spot if you don’t know where to look. But we can see it from where we’re standing. Everybody ready to follow along?”

  She had their attention.

  “Look straight across the lobby to the mezzanine level, center section. Then count up above the arch to the seventh floor, the highest open floor below the skylight. Find the post on the right-hand side of that center section, and count three panels in, toward the left. Do you see it?”

  Results varied. Some guests took longer than others. Some needed the directions repeated, others required help from friends or family.

  “But why is it upside down?”

  “Ah, the million-dollar question,” Rebecca said. “Why indeed. Some people think it was installed by a disgruntled workman. But if that were the case, they would have adjusted it when it was discovered, right? Others speculate that the reasoning comes from various artistic traditions that consider it blasphemous to try to create something perfect, which only the Deity can do. So the artist puts an intentional flaw, or error, in every work of art. Some think that panel may be The Keep’s intentional flaw.”

  “What do you think?”

  Rebecca shared Lochlan’s theory only on the ghost tours. “Are any of you familiar with the Knights Templar?”

  Most nodded tentatively.

  “The Knights are a sort of subset of the Freemasons, an ancient and secretive fraternal order. The Knights arose during the medieval Crusades, when they protected pilgrims on their journeys to the Holy Land.”

  “Da Vinci Code stuff!” a guest contributed.

  “Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail,” another said.

  “Exactly. Well, the Keep’s architect, Edward Brookings, attained a very high ranking, or degree, as a Master Builder within the Freemasons. And for centuries, Freemasons have designed geometrical and numerological codes and powers into their important buildings. As a perfect right triangle, the hotel seems tailor-made for such secrets.”

  Some of the tour guests indicated their tentative acceptance of this possibility.

  “OK, so stay with me. You all know the superstition surrounding Friday the Thirteenth, right? It’s long been considered unlucky. Many trace that superstition back to Friday, October 13, 1307, when French King Phillip IV used false accusations of heresy to arrest all of the Knights Templar in France and to confiscate their sizeable treasury. The Knights were tortured, some were burned at the stake. It was several centuries before the Templars recovered from that blow.”

  At this point, the historian took a breath.

  “Now here comes the intriguing part. Look back up to the upside-down panel. When you count the panels from the left-hand corner column to the upside-down panel, you get 10. When you count from the right-hand side to the upside-down panel, you’ll find it’s in position #13. Put them together and you have the sequence 10—13-- 07 – Oh-seven for the seventh floor: October 13, 1307 – the date that lives in Knights Templar infamy.”

  A few raised eyebrows greeted this revelation.

  “It’s probably just coincidence,” Rebecca granted. “But the order still exists. In fact, 300 of them attended the Griffins Keep’s opening banquet. The Templars actually dedicated the building in 1890, and there are those who believe their spirits continue to watch over the hotel. As always, make of it what you will.”

  On a Lochlan MacKenzie ghost tour, the Knights Templar theory of the upside-down panel provided a springboard for diving into all the Keep’s Masonic and KT connections he found endlessly fascinating. MacKenzies had been Freemasons for generations, and Lochlan had explored the possibility of joining as a young man. But he had been disappointed to discover that the organization in modern times seemed little more than a philanthropic fraternal order with myriad rituals to memorize. The deeper mysteries of the original order, hinted at in accounts he had read, seemed to have been lost or abandoned over time.

  Having studied the order for several decades, Lochlan knew more about Masonic history and traditions than many who counted themselves among its members. Legend traced the order’s origins to builders of the ancient Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem around 1000 B.C.E. Lochlan was intrigued by the parallels between that building and the Griffins Keep.

  The Temple, like the Keep, featured a balcony walkway with many lodging rooms surrounding a central interior atrium. The Temple walls were faced with gold; the Keep’s walls with golden onyx. The wingtips of the two angels in the Temple’s Holy of Holies touched above the Arc of the Covenant they guarded, as did the wings of the two griffins flanking the urn in the hotel’s atrium fountain.

  The Temple, like the Keep, had three doorways. Its main entrance faced east, just as the hotel’s original Grand Entrance had. The Temple entry was positioned to frame the rays of the sun rising on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Lochlan firmly believed that The Keep’s entrance was identically positioned. It was blocked now from any sunrise by the tall buildings across Grand Avenue. But he had plotted the seasonal solar progression and cross-referenced it with the Keep’s footprint, using a special program on his PC. In the resulting model, the equinox sunrises lined up perfectly with the original hotel entrance.

  “The building itself is a sort of cosmic synchrometer,” he told Rebecca on one of her visits to the rooftop upholstery shop.

  “Like a giant sundial?”

  “If you prefer,” Lochlan granted, “but that analogy doesn’t express its function quite as accurately. I believe the Griffins Keep is laid out to correspond with key positions of the sun throughout the seasons. The main entrance, as I’ve said, aligned with the equinoxes. The northeast corner marks the farthest point of the sun’s path at the summer solstice, and the southeast corner corresponds with the sun’s position at winter solstice.”

  “Why would the builders go to the trouble of positioning the building like that?”

  “To demonstrate, in the tradition of Freemasonry, what they knew to be true about the predictable movement of the sun. Freemasons’ structures were physical models that conveyed fundamental principles of celestial mechanics in nonverbal lessons.”

  “Like what?’

  At this, Lochlan dropped into a chair awaiting reupholstering and motioned for Rebecca to take the wobbly-legged seat opposite his. “You’ll want to sit down for the Big One,” he advised.

  Gingerly she complied, praying the broken chair would not collapse beneath her, “Ready,” she announced.

  Lochlan glanced stealthily to his right, then to his left. He leaned forward, cupped a hand to one side of his mouth, and whispered. “The Earth is not the center of the universe.”

  “Get out!” Rebecca exclaimed, feigning shock.

&
nbsp; Lochlan leaned back and smiled. “It seems so obvious to us now that it’s impossible to imagine what a volatile truth that simple fact was in the Dark and Middle Ages. But the very suggestion that our world revolved around the sun, rather than the other way around, was for centuries the height of heresy. Men were executed for such blasphemy. It cast doubt upon the teachings of the church, and that could not be tolerated. The Bible states that God created the Earth before He created the Heavens, clearly implying the world of man to be at the center of everything. Beginning around 100 BCE, geocentricity became accepted church dogma for the next seventeen centuries.”

  “So Masonic structures were like physical testimony to their knowledge of how the universe actually worked when it was too dangerous to come right out and state it.”

  Lochlan nodded. “Essentially, yes. But there’s much more to Masonic architecture than that. They used principles of sacred geometry to maximize both physical and metaphysical energies.”

  Rebecca was skeptical. “The Keep’s alignment is totally coincidental,” she said, reciting the facts as they had been told to her. “Its right-triangular lot resulted from the random intersection of two early Denver street grids, one aligned with Cherry Creek and the other aligned with the cardinal directions – true north, south, east and west. I can’t believe there was some Masonic plot determining its shape or positioning.” But she wasn’t as sure as she sounded.

  Lochlan continued, oblivious to her argument. “Far from primitive, the Mesopotamian architects of Solomon’s Temple times knew more about the natural world and the nature of the cosmos than many subsequent civilizations. They deduced from geometric calculations that the Earth was a sphere, and even had a good idea of how large it was. The Freemasons’ forbidden knowledge included macrocosmic truths they understood long before others were ready to accept them.”

  “How do we know that they knew all this?”