Moss Beach Distillery

A Prohibition-era speakeasy opened in 1927 on a cliff above the Pacific. Dashiell Hammett drank here and set one of his detective stories in the place. Silent film stars and politicians were regulars.

Perched on a windswept cliff above a secluded beach, the Moss Beach Distillery began as "Frank's Place," a wildly successful speakeasy built by Frank Torres in 1927. Under cover of fog and darkness, Canadian rum-runners landed illegal whiskey on the beach below, dragged it up the steep cliff, and loaded it into waiting vehicles for transport to San Francisco. Torres used his excellent political connections to host legendary parties--Brazilian-style soirees with dancing girls--that attracted silent film stars like Fatty Arbuckle, the governor of California, and mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, who used the location in his detective fiction. Unlike other coastal speakeasies, Frank's Place was never raided. After Prohibition's repeal in 1933, it converted into a legitimate restaurant and is now a California Point of Historical Interest.

The Blue Lady is perhaps Northern California's most famous ghost. According to legend, a beautiful young married woman dressed in blue fell in love with the speakeasy's piano player in the 1920s. Communication between the secret lovers relied on subtle signals--"the simple lift of an eyebrow spoke volumes." When her jealous husband discovered the affair, a violent confrontation erupted on the beach below the restaurant. A knife was drawn, and the woman was fatally stabbed while trying to separate the two men. Her lover survived; her husband vanished. Sightings of her spirit began in the early 1930s, just days after her murder.

In 1992, psychic Sylvia Browne visited and identified the ghost as "Mary Ellen Morley," describing her death from "crushing blows to the chest and head." Restaurant employees researched San Mateo County Vital Statistics and discovered Morley actually existed--she died on November 6, 1919, in a car accident near Moss Beach when her vehicle careened off the highway and crushed her beneath it. Her last words were asking her husband Frederick to care for their son, Jack. The injuries matched Browne's description precisely. That same year, the Blue Lady reached national fame on NBC's Unsolved Mysteries.

The restaurant has been a hotbed of activity for decades. Former owner Patricia Andrews witnessed her checkbook levitate completely off the desk and float in a slow circle around the room--when she commanded the ghost to return it, "it listened to her and placed the checkbook back on the shelf." Workers report mysterious winds swirling through the dining room with no windows open, voices calling their names in a woman's whisper when nobody else is around, and sudden rushes of cold, fragrant air. Women diners frequently lose single earrings, only for several to materialize in the same spot weeks later. Rooms lock from the inside with no other means of entry. Children often see the Blue Lady when adults cannot. Parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach has investigated since the 1990s and heard "an unfamiliar female voice say hello" while conversing with only one other person present.

The legend took a controversial turn in June 2008 when the TV show Ghost Hunters exposed staged effects at the restaurant: a hidden speaker in the bathroom ceiling that played pre-recorded laughter triggered by a door sensor, a two-way mirror with a flashing blue head behind it, and pneumatic actuators that made chandeliers sway on a timer. Former Disney employee Daryn Coleman later admitted building the effects. Executive Chef Spencer Gray claimed the gimmicks had been installed "many years prior" but neglected to tell investigators. Despite this revelation, believers point to reports dating back to the 1930s--long before any mechanical trickery--and owner Patricia Andrews maintains that while some effects were fabricated, the building remains haunted. The Blue Lady continues to draw curious visitors to this cliff-side restaurant, where the line between legend and reality blurs with the coastal fog.