Haunted Asheville
By Joshua P. Warren
Copyright ©1996 Joshua P. Warren

The new Battery Park Hotel, a highrise brick structure, officially opened its doors to tourists in 1924. Though far less elaborate than its predecessor, it captured Grove’s feel for the "modern era." Grove was proud of the hotel, one of his last contributions to Asheville. For Grove himself died in his new Battery Park Hotel on January 27, 1927.

Who would have guessed that, less than a decade after the great builder’s own death in the hotel, it would be the site of one of Asheville’s greatest crimes? Unfortunately, the murder of Helen Clevenger was not the last of the tragedies to surround the great hotel. As the years passed, more scenes of unnatural death seemed to be drawn to the site - particularly suicides.

At 7:30 a.m. on September 2, 1943, Clifton Alheit, aged 46, jumped 150 feet to his death from the top of the hotel. Alheit pulled a chair up to the guard rail to facilitate his jump.

Again, in 1972, another man jumped from the roof of the hotel. Michael J. Byrnes, aged 28, was a patient at Highland Hospital. Byrnes was supposedly going to attend Sunday morning mass at Basilica of St. Lawrence (then St. Lawrence Catholic Church). After exiting a taxi, the man went instead to a freight elevator located in the rear of the hotel, and used it to ascend to the top. Byrnes, too, used a chair to get over a guard rail, and then executed his final plunge.

In the cases of both men, no suicide notes were left, and there were no witnesses to their deaths. It seems a bit uncanny that each suicide was similar to the other.

The Battery Park Hotel now serves as an apartment complex for senior citizens. Access to the hotel is strictly guarded - especially to the roof. Though traffic through the building is nothing compared to its illustrious past, there are chilling stories that still manage to seep to the world outside.

It is said that the spirit of Helen Clevenger has been seen in the hotel. On stormy nights, she is sometimes glimpsed wandering through the halls. She can be seen especially when the hallways are dark, and a flash of blue lightning illuminates the window panes - just as it did the night she was brutally murdered. Though the rooms have now been renumbered, the resident of what was once 224 may have some interesting stories to tell, for certain. There are some anonymous claims that, at one o’clock in the morning, on the anniversary of the murder, a blood-red haze surrounds the window of her cursed room. But who is brave enough to venture there that time of night?

It is also interesting to note that the young girl’s name was Helen. Some believe it was her name that may have been given to the ghost on Beaucatcher Mountain (which you’ll ready about later).

It is also quite commonplace to hear tales from bystanders who inadvertently catch a glimpse of something falling from the roof of the Battery Park Hotel. When they search for the source of the vision, however, there is nothing to be found. Could they be seeing the replay of a suicide? Does such a tragic event somehow embed itself permanently in the environment? Who knows?