Well, is the Driskill haunted? Or for that matter, was it even a nice place to stay?

Haunted? Beats the hell out of me. By which I mean that my experience was sort of inconclusive. The whole building is a perfect haunted setting. High ceilings, giant windows, and loads of unique character make it the ideal place to get spooked out. Even though the building is very well maintained there’s still plenty of random creaks and bumps that are surely just from age. While sitting in my room at night waiting to experience something supernatural I heard loads of weird little noises that I attributed to it being an old building.

That said, I’ll tell you about the one sort of strange moment I experienced. My room was one large bedroom plus a bathroom. The bedroom had one large 15 foot high window, and the bathroom had two windows, one 15 feet by 10 feet and the other a smaller stain glass window. I was taking an afternoon nap (it’s not my fault, the bed was super comfy), so I had the heavy curtains drawn in the bedroom. With the curtains drawn it was very dark in the bedroom. However, with two windows in the bathroom, quite a bit of natural sunlight came in through the bathroom door. While lying on the bed I suddenly noticed the light coming through the bathroom door was blocked. I looked over to see almost the entire bathroom doorway blacked out. Except for a little bit of sunlight at the top and bottom of the doorway. About as suddenly, it was back to normal. Logically, there was nothing that could block both large bathroom windows, and also account for the bits of light at the top and bottom of the doorway. Were I to say it looked like something, it looked like the silhouette of a person standing in the doorway. Take from that what you will.

Was it a nice place to stay? Totally. The Driskill is an absolutely lovely hotel. Brilliant architecture and great decor, all of which perfectly display its storied history. Many historical hotels are nice in appearance, but are a pain in the ass with old plumbing and electrics. Fortunately, all of the amenities here are high quality and in great working order. Plus, the icing on the cake – the bed in my room was quite possibly the most comfortable I’ve ever experienced. I can’t imagine a way to say that I’ve tried tons of beds that doesn’t make me sound like the whore of Babylon, but I’ve just moved a lot and stayed in a lot of hotels. Okay? So anyways, altogether a great hotel and a great piece of history.

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// shawn

ps: The bed was much tidier when I arrived, but I wasn’t in love with it then, so it didn’t occur to me to take a photo.

Thanks for subscribing to my RSS feed, I appreciate it! Please be sure to stop by the site sometimes and leave a comment so I know you're still alive. I worry about you. Are you eating okay? Ok, see ya! -- The Driskill Hotel, Austin: Haunted or Not? is a post from: Rerunaround