The Abandoned Haunted Hotel in Florida That Still Draws Travelers

Florida’s landscapes hold not just beaches and palm-lined streets but traces of forgotten grandeur. Among the state’s most talked-about ruins was the Putnam Hotel in DeLand, a once-lavish Mediterranean Revival landmark that became one of Florida’s most photographed abandoned buildings. Though the hotel has now been demolished, its story, of fire, rebirth, and haunting legend, still captivates travelers and locals alike.

A Short History: From Grove House to Grand Hotel

The story begins in the 1880s, when city founder Henry Addison DeLand built the DeLand Grove House to host visitors arriving in the growing settlement. Set among thriving orange groves, it became a social center for early Florida society. The small inn served as a seed for what would become one of the region’s grandest hotels.

In 1885, businessman Alfred Putnam bought the property and expanded it, creating the Putnam House, a three-story wooden hotel with fine dining, electric lighting, and spacious verandas. It quickly drew winter guests escaping northern snow, including educators, entrepreneurs, and politicians. By the early 1900s, it had cemented its place as the crown jewel of DeLand hospitality.

That success, however, ended abruptly in 1921, when an explosion and fire tore through the original wooden structure, reducing it to ashes. Yet within two years, a new vision rose from the ruins. In 1923, the Putnam Hotel opened, a six-story, fire-resistant masterpiece built of brick, concrete, and steel in the Mediterranean Revival style then sweeping Florida. With its arched windows, tile roof, and colonnaded lobby, it embodied the elegance of the Florida land-boom era.

At its peak, the Putnam offered more than a hundred rooms, several dining areas, parlors, and a ballroom. It served as a hub for traveling dignitaries, college visitors from nearby Stetson University, and vacationers seeking luxury in the heart of the state. For decades, the hotel symbolized DeLand’s prosperity and ambition.

The Changing Years

By mid-century, air travel and the rise of newer motels diverted travelers away from downtown DeLand. The Putnam gradually lost its luster. In later decades, parts of the hotel were converted into apartments and dorm-style housing, reflecting the town’s adaptation to a changing economy.

Despite these transitions, the building’s striking architecture endured. Its red-tiled roof, arched porticos, and weathered neon sign stood as quiet reminders of early Florida luxury. Older residents recalled wedding receptions and banquets held under its chandeliers, even as peeling paint and broken windows hinted that the glory days were fading.

By the 1990s, the building’s condition had worsened. Several redevelopment plans surfaced, ranging from boutique hotel proposals to apartment conversions, but none materialized. Maintenance costs and structural decay mounted, and by 2011 the Putnam Hotel finally closed its doors for good.

Haunted Legends and Local Lore

No grand ruin survives without its stories, and the Putnam inspired many. Over the decades, tales of eerie happenings drifted through Volusia County. Locals whispered about flickering lights, phantom footsteps, and voices in the empty hallways.

One enduring story describes a pregnant young woman who fell to her death from a fire escape in 1984. Contemporary police reports confirm the tragedy: nineteen-year-old Elmyra Winfield was pushed from the third floor by her boyfriend, Stephen Paul Hughes, who was later convicted. Her death gave rise to ghost stories that soon merged fact with folklore. Visitors claimed to hear sobbing in the stairwell or feel cold spots near the site of her fall.

Other accounts speak of shadow figures and whispering voices on the upper floors. Some urban explorers insisted the sixth floor, largely unused in later years, was the most active, though this claim remains unverified. While historians note there is little evidence of earlier murders or suicides, these stories added a chilling layer to the hotel’s mythos.

Over time, the building became a staple of Florida’s ghost-tour circuit. Paranormal investigators from across the state visited the property, recording unexplained noises and electromagnetic fluctuations. Whether or not one believes in hauntings, the Putnam’s atmosphere, silent halls, faded wallpaper, and wind echoing through cracked windows, made such experiences easy to imagine.

Fires, Decay, and Abandonment

Left vacant after 2011, the Putnam fell rapidly into disrepair. Windows shattered, ceilings collapsed, and vines crept up the once-elegant façade. Homeless individuals occasionally sheltered inside, and the site became a magnet for urban explorers documenting its slow decline.

In 2018, firefighters responded to a large blaze inside the structure. Investigators ruled it arson, though no suspects were named. The fire did not completely destroy the building but severely damaged the interior and roof, making future restoration exponentially more difficult. Smoke and water damage left behind unstable floors and crumbling plaster.

City inspectors later determined that the building had become structurally unsound. Falling debris, failing masonry, and mold contamination created safety hazards for anyone entering. Efforts by developers to revive the site met consistent obstacles: high renovation costs, code issues, and concerns about asbestos and lead.

By 2022, DeLand officials concluded that demolition was the only viable path forward. Despite protests from preservationists who hoped for at least partial restoration, the city issued a demolition permit in February 2023.

The End of an Era

In early 2023, excavators rolled into downtown DeLand and began dismantling the Putnam Hotel piece by piece. Local newspapers chronicled the moment with both sadness and relief. For many, the demolition marked the final chapter in a building that had defined the skyline for a century.

The process took several weeks. Crews salvaged bricks and ironwork where possible, though much of the structure had deteriorated beyond reuse. When the last walls came down, residents gathered to watch, some bringing old photographs or sharing memories of wedding receptions and holiday dinners long past.

As dust settled, only the foundation remained, a reminder of how quickly Florida’s boom-era landmarks have vanished. Yet the emotional connection lingered. “It was like losing a friend,” one local resident told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. “Even when it was falling apart, it was still part of DeLand’s story.”

Why It Still Draws Attention

Even in absence, the Putnam Hotel continues to attract curiosity. Writers, photographers, and ghost hunters still discuss it in online forums and social media groups. Its story fits neatly into Florida’s larger narrative of impermanence, grand visions built on fragile ground.

For urban explorers, the hotel was a perfect mix of history and decay. Before demolition, its long corridors and crumbling staircases offered hauntingly beautiful photo opportunities. Images shared on blogs like Abandoned Florida captured the eerie stillness: sunlight cutting through dust, peeling paint revealing layers of pastel color beneath. Those images now serve as a visual archive of a building that no longer stands.

Historians remain drawn to its architectural importance. The Putnam embodied the optimism of 1920s Florida development, when Mediterranean Revival hotels, from Miami Beach to the Panhandle, symbolized a new era of leisure. Its design connected DeLand to that statewide boom, showing that even small inland towns aspired to the same level of style and sophistication as coastal resorts.

For others, it’s the human stories that endure: the guests who once danced in its ballroom, the tragedies whispered through generations, and the local workers who watched its slow decline.

The Putnam’s Legacy

Today, the site where the Putnam stood is an open lot awaiting redevelopment. City officials have expressed interest in mixed-use projects that could honor the hotel’s memory while revitalizing downtown DeLand. Whether new construction will incorporate original design motifs remains undecided.

But the Putnam’s spirit, architectural, historical, and folkloric, remains firmly embedded in local culture. Stetson University students still recount ghost stories connected to the building, and longtime residents share memories of family gatherings there. Books, podcasts, and travel blogs continue to revisit its tale, keeping its name alive long after the walls are gone.

In many ways, the Putnam serves as a microcosm of Florida itself: ambitious, glamorous, vulnerable to disaster, and ultimately fleeting. Fires, freezes, and financial crashes have reshaped the state repeatedly, erasing physical landmarks but leaving enduring myths.

The hotel’s story also underscores a broader truth about preservation. Without active upkeep and investment, even iconic structures vanish. For smaller cities like DeLand, the Putnam’s loss has become a rallying point for safeguarding other historic sites before they, too, fade into memory.

The Putnam Hotel may have fallen, but its legend endures. From the modest Grove House of the 1880s to the grand Mediterranean tower of the 1920s, it mirrored Florida’s evolution, hopeful, opulent, and occasionally haunted. Its demolition closed a physical chapter but opened a lasting narrative of nostalgia, curiosity, and reflection.

Visitors passing through DeLand today will find no towering hotel, no neon sign, no echoing lobby. Yet those who listen carefully still sense its presence in local storytelling, photographs, and whispered recollections. The Putnam’s walls are gone, but its shadow remains, etched not in brick and mortar, but in the imagination of everyone who still wonders what once happened behind its doors.