I recently stayed in the historic Putnam Hotel located at 225 W. New York Avenue in Deland, Florida and these are my opinions of the hotel which some say is haunted. My band rented each of the three apartment suites located in rooms 313, 314 and 412 for our one-night stay.
Upon inspecion of each room there was a lot to be desired in space and decor, but at the price of $80 a night for a suite/apartment room the cost was reasonable. As soon as I entered the hotel I could tell by the musty smell that it had some age to it, and much to my dismay the smell increased as we went to the upper floors and was even worse in the bar area. A few of the rooms on each of the floors we were on had a notice on the door that the rooms has been sprayed for bugs and should not be opened, but to my dismay one of the rooms they gave my band had a notice on it. When asked, the hotel manager said the rooms are fine to be in, but it seemed a little strange to me.
If you have a fear of elevators you should avoid the elevator in the Putnam Hotel; it does not go to the third floor, the door sticks and won’t go anywhere unless you help by pushing it closed and when you arrive you have to pry it open. I used the stairs anytime I switched floors except for one time just to see what it was like. Each of the apartment suites had a spacious bedroom but the furnishings were lacking and seemed bare in my opinion; no pictures in the rooms, 70’s style carpet and drab paint made each room seem like a hospital room than a hotel. The dark and dreary hallways helped add to the hospital feel. My drummer and his lovely lady chose the room on the fourth floor solely because the toilet was on a raised platform in the bathroom and he wanted to feel “like a king on his throne”.
Only one of the windows in my bedroom opened, but there was a ceiling fan above the bed and a window unit air conditioner above the couch in the living room/kitchen. When I tried to call out for pizza I noticed that the telephone in the room did not function – good thing I had my cell phone. I also suggest that you bring your own towels because the ones the hotel provides are not very absorbent, in fact I had to use a washcloth to dry off because my towel wasn’t doing the job.
The curtains in my room must have been for decoration because they didn’t deter any sunlight from finding its way to my eyes. The room got quite warm in the morning and the fan above the bed didn’t seem to make much of a difference. In the morning I was awoken around nine o’clock in the morning by the deafening sound of a vaccuum cleaner that sounded like it was in the hallway outside my door just sitting there. As soon as I got back to sleep I was awoken a second time by people from the apartments next door using a power saw.
In conclusion, I would return to the hotel just to try to capture some more ghostly images on film. The Putnam Hotel is a good place to go if you are into history or ghosts and haunted places, but if you’re looking for a good night’s sleep and a fancy room this is definately not the place to go.
