Brookdale Lodge (Brookdale)

The Brookdale Lodge, good food but with an even better ambiance. The restaurant (Brookroom) has a real live brook running through it which is lit with colored lights at night and provides an atmosphere that is very good for both casual and romantic dining. The food, as I already said, is good. It’s not spectacular but the fruit salad I had was almost unique and really worked well for me. It may be a bit out of the way but if you ever pass through Brookdale, or come near it, going to the Brookroom would not be a mistake you’d regret.

But that’s not all! You might want to read what the “All we ever wanted (was everything)” blog has to say about this amazing place.

When the Brookroom is empty you can sometimes hear glasses and plates clinking and people talking as if dozens of ghostly diners are having a meal. A ghostly woman, has been seen walking over the brook as if supported by a bridge removed long ago. Psychics speculate that she is the mother of Sarah Logan returned to find her daughter. The smell of gardenias often permeates the room at night although there are no gardenias in the Brookroom or the lodge. Could this be the perfume of Sarah’s mother?

Big band music has been heard playing faintly in the Fireside Room and in the Pool Room. People have also reported cold spots, presences, and even being touched by unseen forces in the Pool Room.

Late at night doors slam and footsteps are often heard in empty rooms. They are particularly loud from the second floor conference room. Many have reported strange smells and having a sense that the room is full of people when it is empty. Psychics have identified one of the conference room spirits as a man by the name of George. He is a lumberjack and has also been encountered behind the lodge at a place where in the lodge’s early years they chopped wood for its many fireplaces.

In the 1970’s a wing of motel rooms was built over the spot where once stood the lodge’s camping cabins. Room 46 of the motel wing is reported to be very haunted. A woman who worked at the lodge in exchange for lodging has reported that at night objects and shapes would fly across the room. Ghostly ballroom dancers would swirl around leering at her as they floated by. Ghosts would materialize around her bed, their faces sometimes vague and sometimes very very clear. One of the ghosts was a little boy, perhaps 12 or 13 years old, another was a man with his eye hanging loose on his cheek, and still another was a man with a knife wound across his face. Not all of her experiences in room 46 were visual. She also reports that once she felt somebody sit on the edge of her bed and stroke her arm.

The current owners have been told by psychics that, in all, there are 49 spirits in residence at the Brookdale. Enough to make it more than worth a visit.