Originally Published Nov. 8, 2005

By STEVEN ISBITTS

BELLEAIR - Standing motionless in the dark hallway of the Belleview Biltmore Resort’s unoccupied fourth floor, paranormal investigator Thinh McCombs looked up from her blinking hand-held electromagnetic field detector and flashed a broad smile.

“Did you feel it?” she asked.

Those accompanying her on the venerable resort’s new weekly ghost investigation tour shook their heads Saturday night. No ghostlike entity had crossed their paths at that moment - at least not according to their EMF detectors.

Perhaps more would have shared McCombs’ encounter if they had been using laser-guided thermometers, sometimes employed by tour participants to detect cold spots that can signify a presence.

“I’m not sure what to believe until I have an experience,” said tourgoer David Christophy, of Sarasota.

That’s how it goes on a ghost tour that does not include staged events designed to shock spirit seekers. Eerie sounds, apparitions and chilled air are not always part of the action, and there’s no money-back guarantee if you don’t have a ghostly encounter.

The main attractions of the $25 tour are the stately ballrooms, hallways, lounges and closed areas of the Belleview Biltmore said to be haunted.

The Biltmore, built in 1897 and often touted as “the world’s largest occupied wooden structure,” is cashing in on the property’s haunted history, which garnered the resort a 30-minute feature on The Travel Channel’s “Weird Travels” series last year.

Led by a team of paranormal investigators from Orlando Ghost Tours Inc., two tours are offered to the public every Saturday night.

Spook hunters are guided throughout the Biltmore while listening to stories of paranormal encounters on the property. Then they are marched outside for a history lesson before intensive ghost-seeking in various areas of the original hotel buildings, including the ripped-up fourth floor, which smells of old pine and has the look of an abandoned construction site.

Comprehensive weekend investigations in which a team of psychics roams the closed floors are scheduled throughout the year. Those tours extend into the wee hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings and are attracting tourists, Biltmore spokeswoman Jennifer Addison said.

“There has been a lot of interest in the ghost aspect of the property,” Addison said.

Ghosts Won’t Leave

Resort guests milled about the Biltmore lobby Saturday night as teenagers from Northside Christian School in St. Petersburg danced to big-band music at their formal homecoming banquet in the Tiffany Room.

The place was jumping.

There were no signs of the many battles to save the Biltmore waged at recent Belleair Town Commission meetings.

In April, hotel owners filed for a permit to demolish all the buildings on the property, but their request was rejected.

It was reported that a Tampa developer had the property under contract and planned to replace all or part of it with hundreds of luxury condominiums. That deal appeared to fall through, but the hotel owners still want to demolish it.

In late October, hotel attorneys appealed the rejection of the demolition permit minutes before the town commission passed a historic preservation ordinance crafted to save the Biltmore.

So how would any Biltmore ghosts react if the property were razed?

Emelio San Martin, president and founder of Orlando Ghost Tours and a Golf Channel producer, said spirits would be unaffected by changes to the resort.

“The haunt isn’t in the building itself, rather on the property,” said San Martin, whose company also leads ghost investigation tours in Orlando and Louisiana.

“If the Biltmore was torn down, whatever was built on top of it would have the same haunts that exist today.”

No Such Thing As Ghosts

Andrew Nichols, the head of the Gainesville-based American Institute of Parapsychology, frequently is interviewed by national media near Halloween. He agreed that paranormal experiences on the Biltmore property probably would continue no matter what was on the land.

He doesn’t attribute ghostly activity to the dead, though. He cites potential geological factors that can affect the brain - and the power of suggestion.

“The ghost tours are entertainment. What they’re doing is not scientific,” Nichols said.

In the rare case that ghost sightings are caused by something beyond psychology, Nichols said, those events usually are hallucinations triggered by electromagnetic field anomalies caused by the proximity of a seismic fault, certain quartz-bearing rock or flowing underground water, which is common in Florida.

Nichols said electromagnetic forces can cause many types of hallucinations in about 15 percent of the population.

“My findings come from 30 years of rigorous science. So I get a lot of heat from the true-believer set,” Nichols said.

Nichols has not studied the Biltmore, but he said he would not be surprised to find that geological anomalies there have produced its haunted history.

“When a location has had years of recorded accounts, it’s worth investigating,” Nichols said.