The Flanders Hotel

Built on the Ocean City boardwalk in 1923, this landmark hotel's hauntings are the most talked about in the Atlantic City area. The massive hotel has underground catacombs that add to its mysterious atmosphere.

The Flanders Hotel opened on July 23, 1923, at a cost of $1.5 million, making it the largest construction project in Ocean City history. Architect Vivian B. Smith designed the Spanish Colonial Revival structure with steel girders, concrete, and tile roofing, marketing it as fireproof. The hotel was named in honor of the fallen Allied troops at the Battle of Flanders in Belgium during World War I, and its opening ceremonies featured ballrooms adorned with images of poppies. Its fireproof construction proved prophetic when the devastating 1927 boardwalk fire destroyed approximately 500 guest rooms in surrounding buildings while the Flanders stood unscathed. Over the decades, the hotel hosted Vice-President Charles Curtis, Grace Kelly, and Jimmy Stewart among its notable guests.

The hotel's most famous ghost is Emily, known as the Lady in White, a playful apparition described as a young woman in her early twenties with long brown hair who wanders the hallways barefoot in a flowing white gown. She is most frequently encountered on the second and fourth floors, where guests and staff report hearing her singing, laughing, and humming. Her mischievous behavior includes rattling doorknobs, opening and closing doors, unscrewing light bulbs, and appearing briefly in mirrors before vanishing through walls. The train of her white gown has been seen whisking around corners by startled guests. Artist Tony Troy painted a portrait of Emily based on descriptions compiled from staff and guest sightings, and it hangs on the hotel's second floor. The hotel's restaurant was named after her as well. There are competing theories about her identity: one holds that she was the fiancee of a soldier killed in the trenches of World War I, forever awaiting his return. Another suggests she was a bride-to-be who lost her wedding ring somewhere in the hotel, possibly while using the pools and returning through the catacombs to her room.

Below the hotel lies a labyrinth of seven or eight expansive rooms built below sea level, known as the Catacombs of the Flanders. During Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s, these underground passages housed speakeasies, gaming rooms, and served as meeting spaces for organized crime figures conducting their business away from public view. The catacombs carry their own haunting. According to local accounts, a young girl named Sarah died of hypothermia in the basement after being carried through the tunnels from the beach. A second apparition, described as a brown-haired woman believed to be Sarah's mother, has been reported desperately searching the underground passages for her lost child. Psychic Joseph Tittel, who has investigated the hotel, reported sensing the spirits of Mafia victims in the catacombs -- one allegedly hanged and another killed by a combination of stabbing and strangulation during the hotel's years as a gangster meeting point. Staff have described dark, hostile presences in certain sections of the basement that feel distinctly different from Emily's playful energy. During the 1927 fire that ravaged the surrounding boardwalk, a man named Emil Landbach died in a car accident while rushing to check on his home, and some believe his spirit also lingers within the hotel that survived the blaze he did not. The Flanders was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, and today operates as a condominium and hotel property where Emily, according to believers, continues her eternal rounds.