Lowe Hotel — Attraction in Point Pleasant

My husband and I stayed here for our 5th Wedding Anniversary. He called ahead and made all the necessary arrangements as a surprise for me. Not only were we going to Point Pleasant West Virginia to see the Mothman but, we were staying in a 110 year old haunted hotel! AND !!!! To make it even better ... he made sure he booked us the most haunted room in the hotel! Rush and Ruth Finley, the owners, are just the best people! They made sure everything my husband planed went off perfectly, even to having two wine glasses and a cork screw available for the bottle of wine he surprised me with. Although Ruth has a very strict rule she never speaks of the hauntings until you have spent at least one night, she was great with letting us roam the fourth floor (which wasn't open to the public at the time) and helping us with information about the local area.

The hotel is in a slow renovation, which is fine by me because they are taking a great deal of love in their restoration. We had room 316, which is the most haunted room in the hotel. It is three rooms put together into a suit. Now do not get excited thinking this was half a hotel floor, it was three old fashion rooms. Ya know back when they didn't have bathrooms in each room? So one room became the bathroom, one room was the seating area, and one was where the two double beds were. The room was adorned with not exactly period turn of the century furniture and decor but older furnishings. The bathroom was well stocked with ample towels and soaps, the beds had four pillows each, and the room was very clean. Although it was not incredibly hot during our stay, the two window air conditioning units were more than adequate for keeping our room cool. Most amazingly was that for as old as this building is, there was no noise from the other guests. One would think that for as thin as the walls were, the transoms above the doors and simple wooden doors on each room you would hear everything in the other rooms but surprisingly you do not, but then it is possible I was just so sound asleep in the big comfy bed I didn't hear anything!

As far as the "super natural" happenings ... I have to tell you I have never had a more peaceful night sleep in my life! I know that sounds like nothing but when you understand that I never sleep through the night without waking up several times for one reason or another, you would understand why I personally think the "spirits" protected me and helped me sleep through the night. You do often get the weird feeling of being watched but that was really all that we "experienced". Having said that I do want to say that while we were there, my husband and I walked all over that town and were absolutely exhausted by 10 pm and quite literately passed out cold in those big fluffy beds. We took a lot of our ghost hunting equipment with us to take pictures, EVPs, IRF's and all sorts of things but never even unpacked our equipment because we were having so much fun with everything else in the area and talking with the locals!

All in all we absolutely loved our stay and can not wait to go back again! Every time we left the hotel we felt like we needed to say "we'll be...

I wanted so badly to love this place, but I can't even like it. We just left a night early from staying there for The Mothman Festival.

Now, I love historic buildings, and I was prepared for the fact that it would be a unique experience and might not include all the modern amenities of other hotels. So no fridge, microwave, daily housekeeping, working lamps, coffee maker, alarm clock, central air, etc.

When we arrived, the family who owns the hotel was occupying the lobby. That would become a common theme. Then, we were informed that we needed to be in our room by 10. We also received a key to unlock and lock the front door as it was also locked at 10. Weird, but ok.

Now, I know the building is over 100 years old, but I've lived and worked in similarly aged buildings (even well-trafficked historic sites) my whole life, and the condition of this place was sad. I know, my home doesn't have guests in and out of it all the time, but I also don't charge $300 a night (the Mothman Festival rate). The carpets were threadbare and looked dirty, extension cords were daisy-chained to old outlets, paint was peeling, the linoleum in the bathroom got caught on my sandal and pulled up, the bathtub was stained, the sink had no water pressure, the shower never stopped dripping... I could go on and on. All that being said, we didn't encounter obviously dirty sheets or anything completely unacceptable. But I got the vibe that cleaning and restoring wasn't at the top of their priority list. And I went as long as possible without using the shower.

But all of these things could be overlooked if the staff was friendly and hospitable. On our second day, we were yelled at and chased down by staff who thought we were just snooping in the lobby. (Entrance by non-guests is strictly prohibited without paying for a tour.) Breakfast was... sparse. We arrived 10 minutes after breakfast was supposed to begin and found all the hot food gone. They had some open boxes of cereal you could share with others, but we passed after tasting the open containers of stale pretzels at the bar the night before. The weirdest part of all? You had to walk through crowds of the owner's family members to get to the dining room and bar.... Or really anywhere. It honestly felt like you were intruding in someone's home.

tl;dr: It's expensive, awkward and...

Hotel was very cool and authentic. The hotel room was very nice, however, our bathroom door was hard to close and it would get stuck trying to open. We only stayed one night so it wasn't a huge deal.

We arrived around 1. The girl working the front desk was super nice and friendly and checked us in early since we had a lot of motorcycle gear we had to unpack. She gave us lots of great tips for checking out the town. We were told check out was 10-10:30 the next morning which worked out great.

The day of checking out we went and got breakfast. When coming back we told the clerk (a different woman) that we had to pack up our motorcycle and had lots to bring down, but that we would be out by 10 (remember, check out was between 10-10:30). The clerk was rude and kept trying to rush us out. We came in after our initial trip downstairs and held her hands out for the keys to my girlfriend. My girlfriend said that we weren't finished (we were locking the door in between trips, just to make sure nothing got stolen), and told my girlfriend "you'd be surprised" about how people won't go into our room. We had paid for the room and were using it as we intended to make sure our stuff didn't get stolen. My girlfriend felt pressured to rush to get all our stuff down fast despite us still making good time to be done before check out. She watched us like a hawk as we packed up the bike. Finally as my girlfriend went in for the last bit of stuff, she once again asked for the keys. This time she handed them over as we were mostly done. We checked out around 9:45/10, which was well within the 10-10:30 window. The whole experience was weird and made us not want to stay there again. I know the keys are special (they're skeleton keys) and that they want them back, but it felt like we were being hounded and watched over like children, and rushing to get out for a room we already paid for.

Still a very nice place. Would be 5 stars but the check out process left a bad taste in our mouths for the rest of the trip. May or may not stay again just based on that interaction.

To the first clerk that checked us in: thanks for your hospitality and wonderful tips about the town! We checked out basically everything you told us to and...