Maribel Caves Hotel

Opened in 1900 as a fancy spa resort, then nicknamed Hotel Hell after decades of fires and deaths. A 2013 windstorm finished it off — it's a ruin on private property now.

The Maribel Caves Hotel was born from an Austrian immigrant's dream. Charles Steinbrecher envisioned a European-style health spa modeled after the mineral spring resorts of his homeland. His son Walter purchased the property in 1893, and another son, Father Francis X. Steinbrecher, a priest at St. Mary's in Kaukauna, actualized the vision by acquiring additional land in 1900. Father Steinbrecher recruited thirty stonemasons from his parish to build a resort using local limestone from the family's own lime kilns. The structure was completed in just four months, its rounded tower and arching facade replicating the attributes of European medieval castles. The 450-acre resort opened in June 1900 with the marketing slogan "just the place for the weary to seek rest and comfort," offering 42 guest rooms across two upper floors, an elegant dining room with decorative murals, dumbwaiters, and mineral water piped directly to the rooms. Over 200 guests could be found on a daily basis enjoying fine bathing, boating, fishing, and tours of the limestone caves. The Maribel Caves Springs Company built a bottling plant behind the hotel, shipping mineral water to Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis.

After Father Steinbrecher's death in 1927, the resort's clientele shifted dramatically. During Prohibition, the establishment became associated with moonshiners and prostitutes. Family lore connects it to organized crime: Steinbrecher descendant Sherry Dewane shared that one of her great-aunts "had gone out with one of Al Capone's men." Local legends claim Al Capone and John Dillinger used the hotel as a hideout, running moonshine through the bottling plant and stashing treasure in underground passageways. Whether true or embellished, the Prohibition years marked the end of the hotel's respectable era. Cherney Construction Company purchased the property in 1932, Adolph Cherney sold 75 acres to Manitowoc County for parkland in 1963, and subsequent owners operated the site as a tavern through the 1970s. In 1981, Bob Lyman, later president of the Manitowoc County Historical Society, and his wife Doris acquired the property to prevent demolition.

Three fires consumed the building over the decades, giving rise to one of the most persistent legends: that the hotel burned three times on the exact same date, with fires in the 1920s and 1930. The legend claims that in the final 1930 blaze, "everybody died in their sleep." Skeletal remains were supposedly found on the third floor and in the basement before the building was gutted. A devastating interior fire in 1985 destroyed what remained of the functional building, and it was this fire that ignited the haunting legends. The building's empty shell stood for nearly three decades before a 2013 tornado reduced much of it to ruined piles of stone.

The legends that coalesced after the 1985 fire are among the most elaborate in Wisconsin folklore. The most dramatic claims that a group of practitioners conducted secret rituals to curse the hotel and in the process opened a portal to hell through the old fountain in front of the building, unleashing a horde of malevolent spirits. According to the legend, a practitioner of white magic subsequently sealed the portal, confining the spirits to the hotel grounds. Another legend tells of a guest who committed mass murder followed by suicide within the hotel walls. The "Hotel Hell" nickname, which now overshadows the building's actual name, emerged from this tangle of claims and urban legend.

Tour guide Andy Krahn describes what he's witnessed: "If you stop outside on the road and you watch to the windows, you'll see a shadow bounce from window to window." Visitors report cold hands applying pressure on their backs on the third floor, feelings of being threatened in the basement, blood appearing on walls, yelling from below ground, and a bell that rings from within the empty structure. One of the most persistent claims is the flashlight phenomenon: if you shine a flashlight at a second-floor window, something shines a light back at you. Ghost sightings have also been reported in the nearby Maribel Caves, the same limestone formations that once drew health-seeking tourists.

Richard Wagner, great-grandson of Charles Steinbrecher, offered a more grounded perspective when asked about the ghosts. The only spirit his grandfather ever saw, Wagner said, was Charles Steinbrecher himself "walking around in his one-piece nightshirt." Manitowoc County Historical Society Executive Director Amy Myer has noted that Prohibition-era changes to rural establishments explain much of the darker reputation, and many of the more sensational legends can't be verified. The ruins sit at 15401 County Road R on private property, and the owner asks visitors to maintain respectful distance from what remains of Father Steinbrecher's dream.