Est. 1918 · First Funeral Home Chapel in Florida · First Crematorium South of Cincinnati · Central Florida's Largest Funeral Home (1920–1992) · Renaissance Revival Architecture
Carey Hand came to Orlando in 1907 to join his father Elijah — the city's first professional embalmer — at the family business on W Pine Street. After buying out his father's interest in 1914, Carey spent the following years planning a modern, purpose-built funeral home befitting what had become the largest mortuary operation in Central Florida. In 1918, he constructed the new building at 36 W Pine, designed by architect F.H. Trimble in Renaissance Revival style. Its eight-arch street facade gave it a civic gravitas unusual for a funeral establishment.
The building opened in 1920 with two significant firsts: it was the first funeral home in Florida to include a chapel within the building itself, and it housed the first crematorium built south of Cincinnati and Washington, D.C. Both distinctions reflected Carey Hand's ambition to modernize and formalize death care in Florida, shifting the practice from improvised household arrangements to a professional, purpose-designed industry. The funeral home served Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Polk, and Hillsborough counties.
Care Hand died in 1946. His wife sold the business in 1947, though the building continued to operate as a mortuary under various operators until 1992. The building then sat through a period of uncertain use before the University of Central Florida's College of Business converted it for use as the Executive Development Center in 2007. UCF graduate programs in business administration, management, accounting, and real estate are now offered in the space where Central Florida's most important early funeral home prepared an estimated hundreds of thousands of bodies over seven decades.
Sources
- https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucfs-haunting-history/
- https://citydistrictorlando.com/the-carey-hand-building/
- https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2024/10/25/these-15-orlando-area-spots-are-among-the-most-haunted-in-florida/
Phantom footstepsSelf-slamming doorsElectronics malfunction (computers, lights)Apparition (deceased faculty member)Unexplained voices
The Carey Hand Building's paranormal reputation developed after UCF began using it in 2007, as students and staff encountered phenomena they could not attribute to the building's aging systems.
The most reported phenomenon is footsteps — specifically, the sound of someone walking through empty corridors, both during business hours and in the evening when foot traffic should have stopped. Passersby outside the building have also reported hearing footsteps and what sound like conversations from within when the building appears unoccupied.
Doors have been reported slamming shut with enough force to startle people in adjacent rooms, without any draft or mechanical explanation. Electronics — computers in particular — have been documented turning on independently, and the building's lighting has been described as flickering in patterns that electricians have not been able to trace to a source.
A specific apparition is associated with the building: a former faculty member who died unexpectedly while working late one evening. Their presence is reported primarily in the evening hours, most often in areas connected to their regular work in the building. No name is given in public accounts, and it is not possible to verify this claim against documented records.
