The Grenville Hotel : Bay Head, NJ

The historic Grenville Hotel has been around since 1886 and has plenty of history behind it. It is more commonly known for its elegant weddings, amazing restaurant and close to the ocean stay. Yet on occasion, the hotel has a few guests who leave with more than expected. In 1890 Anna Nunemaker who had bought the land allowed Wycoff Applegate to build the hotel. In 1922, the hotel was sold to Nellie Georgette who renamed it the Georgette Hotel until 1945 when it was sold to The Grenville Corporation. A fire destroyed the Grenville Arms located on the same block, and The Georgette was re-named The Grenville. After it was sold again in 1965 to the Spurgat Family it continued on as summer hotel, where many fond memories were created. In 1987 the building was purchased by Joseph P. Milza who renovated the building into the hotel adding twenty rooms, heat, air and an elevator.

Finally, in 2004, Harry and Renee Typaldos bought the building and helped turn it into the amazing place it is today. After over 100 years of existence and so many memories, its no wonder that the hotel is rumored to be haunted. In accordance with my talk with Harry, there rarely goes a day without an occurrence. The most common form of activity involves various things moving in the dining room. Dishes, silverware, glasses, you name it; its moved and sometimes broken. Also high in activity are noises, evp’s, and voices. Both in the dining room, 3rd floor and out on the front deck, guests commonly claim to hear voices, footsteps and more. The most common noise is the laughter of little children playing. It’s also very common to hear footsteps in unoccupied places, as this is what the employees kept telling me. Lastly are the apparitions; the various sights of both men and women in old elegant clothing who like to make appearances for guests. Harry himself told me stories of these figures and assured me that they are all friendly, and not harmful in any way. One of our readers reached out and told us the following,

“In the summer of 2008 I stayed at the hotel in room 304. I was relaxing and watching some TV after a long day on the beach and heard the laughter of children from the room over. At first I blew this off because I had not seen any children in the hotel. Maybe it was too much sun. Later in the evening I awoke around 1am to the sound of footstep moving in my room towards my bed…followed by someone sitting on the edge of the bed. This scared me so much that I called the front desk. The owner assured me it was nothing to be worried about, that it was just the old building. I tried to fall asleep, but was again visited by an apparition of a young woman, wearing a white evening gown from what looked like the 1920’s. I asked her who she was but she just vanished. I never imagined this would happened, but it has peaked my curiosity since.”

This story falls in line with what Harry told me, saying that the third floor has the most activity, especially rooms 303 and 304. We performed some investigations at the hotel during our tour and came up with some interesting results. This included some answers which seemed to be intelligent. This leads us to question what types of spirits may exist within the hotel, and who are they. Rumors state that it’s the former owners the inn, or maybe a guest who perished while staying there. While no official record states that, we will have to keep a close eye on this hot spot. Be sure to let us know if you’ve experienced anything.