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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us October 31, 2005 A ghost without peers By Alan Panebaker Ashland Daily Tidings When the owners and employees of the Peerless Hotel in Ashland’s Railroad District felt a chilling presence in the old dilapidated building, they didn’t think much of it. During a renovation of the same building, as a few marbles spontaneously appeared and rolled across the floor, questions began to arise. Now with a handful of experiences by guests and employees alike, Amelia the ghost has made her presence very real to all who spend time in this 105-year-old building. “I generally experience her as chills,” innkeeper Robin Del Rio said. “The first time I experienced her I was in Room One. It was late at night. I was working by myself, and all of the sudden, I just felt this energy. There was no fear at all.” Del Rio’s experiences with Amelia are not uncommon at the Peerless, as the newly redecorated interior of the building brings out an eerie elegance that feels like a quiet little haven where a premonition might live. Billye Jo Johnson holds up a photo of how the hotel once looked out side of the hotel. Photos by Orville Hector As Billye Jo Johnson — the owner’s mother — noted, a good chunk of the supernatural activity that people experienced in the Peerless happened around the time it was renovated (between 1992 and 1994). Built in 1900 as a housing place for low-income workers, the Peerless stayed around in Ashland until the early 1990s. By this time, the old Peerless Hotel was falling apart at the seams, and it was a choice of whether to fix her up or destroy the building. Owner Crissy Barnett chose the former, and it seems Amelia has thanked her for it by offering only positive appearances. “She’s mischievous rather than eerie feeling,” Del Rio said of the local ghost. Some of this mischief showed up during the renovation, when the walls between rooms only reached to about a foot above the floor — making it easy to see the floor in the next room but nothing else. Enter the marble incident. “My daughter heard this noise, and it was just the marbles dropping and rolling,” Johnson said. It was also during this time that a woman who claimed to be a clairvoyant came to the hotel and spoke of what everyone else was thinking: there was a supernatural presence. She dubbed the ghost Amelia and said was the apparition was happy with what Barnett was doing with the place. Peerless Hotel Innkeeper Robin Del Rio , left, talks to Billye Jo Johnson in the room where the ghost has been seen. No one seems to know for sure Amelia’s origins or whose ghost she really is. From rattling doorknobs with no one on the other side to remnants of granite that were used by a rock smith to make headstones for graves, there is a certain sense of the supernatural that emanates from the Peerless. The leftover pieces of granite seem to be yet another part of this ghost’s play land, Del Rio said. “I would imagine Amelia comes out here and perches,” she said. When she isn’t perching on old granite headstones and slamming doors that weren’t open to begin with, Amelia has been known to spread her mischief to the hotel’s guests. The most striking circumstance happened in Room Three of the hotel. In a mirror above an elegant old imported dresser, a woman saw an apparition that could only be described as Amelia. According to Johnson, the woman had never heard there was a ghost in the hotel. “She said she wasn’t frightened, only startled,” Johnson said. A couple doors down, in Room Five, a guest felt a cool breeze on his neck as he poured a glass of wine. Thinking it was his wife; he turned around to see that she was on the opposite side of the room. This was two years ago. Amelia continues to “haunt” the Peerless Hotel with her tricky yet friendly mannerisms. “When I’m here by myself, I’ll be going up the stairs and just a cold chill comes over me,” Johnson said. Patrick O’Toole, chef of the Peerless Restaurant, had his own experience with Amelia as he was staying in the hotel upon first arriving in Ashland. “I stayed in Room Three for two weeks before my wife arrived,” O’Toole said. “One night I was all alone at about 3 a.m., and I heard loud footsteps outside my door. There was so much activity that I just stayed in the room.” While O’Toole is not afraid of Amelia or paranoid about kitchenware levitating, he has a respect and curiosity for the ghost in his place of business. Even though Amelia usually stays in the old section of the building and not the kitchen or addition that has been built, O’Toole is always on the lookout for her. Like the owner, family and innkeeper, he maintains the common thread of supernatural belief in Amelia. “I believe that a ghost does exist at the Peerless,” O’Toole said. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams