Est. 1923 · Orlando's Tallest Building at Opening (1923) · Neo-Renaissance Architecture · Orange County Courthouse Annex (1988-1998) · Downtown Orlando Heritage
Joseph Fenner Ange announced plans in June 1920 for a one-million-dollar hotel at 37 North Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando. He hired architect Murray S. King to design the structure, and construction ran from 1921 to 1923. The Angebilt Hotel opened March 14, 1923, with 250 rooms across 11 floors — the tallest building in Orlando at the time, topping out at 42 meters. The name derived from the builder's surname.
On March 1, 1923, as the building neared completion, daredevil Harry Gardiner — known as the Human Fly — scaled the exterior for the Elks Club. The hotel hosted notable guests including Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Two separate radio stations operated from the building. The Angebilt competed with the San Juan Hotel across Orange Avenue for more than five decades.
A February 1983 fire damaged the building's top two floors; firefighters controlled the blaze after nearly three hours. In 1988, following asbestos discovery in the Orange County Courthouse's 1960 annex, the county designated the Angebilt as a courthouse annex. This function continued until 1998, when county operations moved to a newer facility. A tunnel beneath Orange Avenue connected the Angebilt complex to the Beacham Theatre, which served as a jail for a period. The building subsequently converted to commercial office use. In January 2019, Novel Coworking LLC purchased the 100,323-square-foot structure for $13.7 million and renamed operations under the Expansive brand.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angebilt_Building
- https://www.clickorlando.com/features/2023/04/13/we-explore-the-secret-tunnel-under-orange-avenue-in-downtown-orlando/
ApparitionsCold spotsPhantom soundsDoors locking without causeSensation of presence
The primary haunted focus at the Angebilt is the tunnel running beneath Orange Avenue. The passage is narrow — one journalist who entered reported needing to crawl — and damp, extending roughly 10 to 15 feet before turning and continuing into darkness. The tunnel's construction date is unknown; local legend holds that it allowed performers at the Beacham Theatre to avoid street-level crowds, though historian Joy Wallace Dickinson noted that a member of the Milligan family, whose family once owned the Angebilt, had never heard of this origin story. During the courthouse annex years, law enforcement used the tunnel to transfer people between the jail and the court.
Paranormal accounts collected by local tour operators focus on two phenomena in the tunnel. Workers describe a sensation of demonic presence — a feeling of being watched or followed by something malevolent — separate from visual apparitions. The more specific visual report involves a woman in white who appears at the far end of the tunnel, drifts toward witnesses, and vanishes as she draws close, sometimes with a reported physical chill.
The above-ground building generates a separate category of reports: unexplained sounds described as party noise and laughter from empty floors, and doors locking themselves without external cause. Orlando news coverage of the building's haunted reputation focuses on the tunnel, which has remained inaccessible to the public since the courthouse era.
Notable Entities
Woman in white
Where this legend is told
