From: Michele Phillips
Date: Nov 7, 2003
To: obiwan@ghosts.org
Subject: Brookdale Lodge
Just stumbled across your website while looking up information on this week's Travel Channel's haunted hotels. This summer while visiting the Santa Cruz boardwalk with a girlfriend of mine, we decided instead of driving back to Rio Del Mar or staying with her husband in their condo in Boulder Creek we would get a room in Santa Cruz. The town was sold out with the exception of one room that was on a back alley behind the main parking lot, didn't have electricity, and probably had not changed the sheets in years. We were told an elderly couple had lived there. Deciding against it we headed up 9 (I believe) into Scotts Valley and every stop from motels to cabins were full.
We then stopped at the Brookdale Lodge, must have been between midnight and 1:00 am at this point. My girlfriend mentioned as we got out of the car that this place was supposed to be haunted. I told her to knock it off and quit trying to scare me! and she immediately dropped the subject. They had one room left, number 47 (?) and we immediately booked it. We decided to stay in the bar, after using the ladies room. Walking down the ramp towards the ladies room it immediately turned very cold, while using the restroom, I swear I thought were in the wrong room because I saw men's work boots in the stall next to me. While exiting the room after washing our hands the site of a used paper towel caused my friend to start gagging. She exited the bathroom and has the hydraulic door shut, I grabbed it to open and it was as if there were no hydraulic pressure and the door slammed shut practically throwing me into her. I thought nothing of this at the time whatsoever.
After a couple of drinks we found our way to the room, second to the last one in the two story wing around the left of the hotel. The evening weather was chilly, with tons of trees aroun! d us blowing in the wind. Entering the room it was stifling. We opened the large doors and windows that faced towards a grassy area and opened louvered windows above the door on the opposite side of the room. My friend stepped out on the balcony to have a cigarette, her hair blowing in the wind, yet we could not get any air ventilated in that room. The switch on the room a/c was missing, so that could have been no help either. My girlfriend became extremely upset that pictures were obviously missing from the walls, leaving a shadowed area where they had been hanging. I had no idea what was upsetting her so much. Too tired to care I was going to bed. Only a couple of TV stations available I figured I would try to get some sleep after a long day of fun in the sun. She decided at this point she would head on home to check on her husband and would meet me in the morning.
All through the night I could not believe how hot! that room was, there was no air and if felt like a million people were in that room taking up space. I had a hard time sleeping at first because of all the noise, doors slamming, heaving footsteps, I couldn't believe how insensitive people could be in the middle of the night. Sleep must have eventually come because the following morning I could not pull out of it. It felt drugged, oppressed, as if sleep had been induced and I could not seek a level of wakefulness. I was absolutely shocked to see it was 11:00am, that is the middle of the day for me! And it was only because my friend had returned and was waking me up.
We decided to head downstairs for breakfast. We went to the coffee shop, ordered breakfast and decided to get a couple of bloody marys from the bar. While over on that side we discovered the dining room with the stream running through it. So pretty but a little eerie feeling. We went back to ! the coffee shop to tell them we were changing our mind and wanted to have the Sunday Brunch but out orders were ready. We ate quickly and returned to the main lobby.
It was then I discovered all the newspaper clippings and history. I could not believe growing up in the Aptos area where our vacation home is located and never knew of this place. While reading the clippings, the hair stood up on the back of my neck, my friend had Goosebumps on goosebumps and admitted to me she had left the previous night because she was so spooked. The indoor pool area I had visited earlier was soaking wet, yet there were no sign of swimmers, the cold pockets in the bathroom area, loud noises and footsteps, yet I was at the end of the corridor?
To this day I am spooked just sitting here writing this. My son just walked into the room and I jumped out of my skin. My friend has returned for several visits taking her children with her. Her 17 ye! ar old daughter is adamant someone had drowned in the indoor swimming pool, and my friend, who has had encounters prior, cannot speak of that night without becoming visibly shaken. I, though never a skeptic, now believe that what your naked eye may not reveal, the hair on the back of your neck does.
Michele Phillips
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This page (http://www.ghosts.org/brookdalelodge3.html) last updated April 3, 2005.