HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
+ 2 further entries on record
Restored 1913 Pantlind Hotel on the Grand River
187 Monroe Ave NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved urban hotel; elevator access throughout
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1913 · Gilded Age Hotel · Furniture City Heritage · 1981 Restoration
Construction on the Pantlind Hotel began in 1913 along Monroe Avenue in downtown Grand Rapids, replacing earlier hotels on the same site, and the hotel reopened after extensive renovations in 1916. It was designed by Warren and Wetmore, the New York firm whose Grand Central Terminal opened the same year, and its lobby ceiling remains one of the largest gold-leaf installations in the world. By 1925 it had earned a place on a national list of the country's top ten hotels, drawing furniture buyers, governors, and traveling industrialists during the city's reign as a global furniture-manufacturing capital.
The Great Depression hollowed out that economy, and the Pantlind followed Grand Rapids into a long decline. By the 1970s the building had deteriorated badly. In 1979 the Amway Corporation, then headquartered in nearby Ada, acquired the hotel and undertook a multi-year restoration. Original ironwork, plaster ceilings, and the English Adams architectural detailing of the lobby were preserved or recreated; the restored property reopened as the Amway Grand Plaza in 1981, and the 29-story Glass Tower was added in 1983.
The hotel today operates as part of Hilton's Curio Collection and contains 656 rooms across the historic Pantlind Wing and the modern Glass Tower. A documented tragedy from the early Pantlind era remains part of the building's institutional memory: in 1914, a year after construction began, a hotel maid named Mary Monko was killed in an elevator accident on the upper floors, an incident that survives in contemporary newspaper records (the Lowell Ledger, 1914) and is referenced in the hotel's own ghost-tour materials.
Sources
The reported phenomena at the Amway Grand Plaza are concentrated in the original Pantlind Wing rather than the modern tower. Staff and guests have described faucets running unprompted with steaming hot water, hallway lights that flicker on and off without electrical fault, and doors that slam closed in unoccupied corridors. Rooms 336 and 337 appear most frequently in these accounts, and at least one guest reported a shadow figure standing over the bed before vanishing.
The most cited entity is Mary Monko, a Pantlind maid killed in a 1914 elevator accident, a year after construction began. The story, corroborated by newspaper reports of the era, holds that Monko stepped off the elevator car as it began descending and was caught between the iron gate and the tenth-floor landing. Her presence is reported throughout the back-of-house corridors and service stairwells.
In the Pantlind Ballroom, several accounts describe figures in Victorian formalwear seen briefly during off-hours setups. A separate, often-repeated story involves an unnamed cigar smoker whose presence is signaled by the smell of tobacco and the disappearance and rearrangement of ashtrays in the older lounges. The hotel has, in recent years, leaned into this folklore by hosting seasonal ghost tours of the Pantlind Wing each October.
Notable Entities
Book a room in the original 1913 Pantlind Wing, where staff and guests have reported flickering lights, slamming doors, and shadow figures most often around rooms 336 and 337. The Pantlind Ballroom is the reputed haunt of Victorian-attired dancers.
Ghosts of the Grand is the hotel's annual indoor walking tour of the historic Pantlind Wing, led by guides from Tours Around Michigan. The one-hour tour explores the hotel and shares stories of reported supernatural activity, including this year's. It runs October 28 and 29, 2026, with check-in at the Sunburst Lounge near the fountain in the Pantlind Lobby; ages 21 and up.
The hotel's restaurants and lounges occupy spaces in the restored Pantlind Wing. Reports of cigar smoke and rearranged ashtrays cluster around the older bars and ballroom levels.
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