1913 Asheville Resort with the Pink Lady of Room 545
290 Macon Ave, Asheville, NC 28804
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$$
Luxury resort rates. Day-use options include spa, dining, and grounds access for non-guests at varying tiers.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Sprawling resort with elevators, accessible rooms, and paved grounds; some original 1913 stone interior surfaces are uneven
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1913 · Edwin Wiley Grove · Arts and Crafts Resort Architecture · Presidential and Literary Guest History
The Grove Park Inn opened on July 12, 1913, built in eleven months and twenty-seven days by Edwin Wiley Grove, the St. Louis pharmaceutical magnate who had made his fortune selling Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic. The tonic was a malaria treatment that masked quinine's bitter taste with iron, sugar, lemon flavoring, and alcohol, and Grove's later years were oriented toward Asheville real-estate development.
Grove and his son-in-law Fred Loring Seely designed the inn in an Arts and Crafts idiom and faced it with native granite quarried from Sunset Mountain, with up to four hundred men working ten-hour shifts six days a week to complete the building. The Great Hall's twin granite fireplaces and the inn's massive boulder construction are characteristic of the building's enduring identity.
Ten US presidents — from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama — have stayed at the Grove Park, alongside Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald rented rooms 441 and 443 on and off for two years during his visits to his wife Zelda, who was being treated at Asheville's Highland Hospital for a nervous breakdown. The inn continues to operate as a full-service luxury resort.
Sources
The Grove Park Inn's most-told story is the Pink Lady. In the inn's tradition, sometime in the early 1920s a young woman in a pink gown staying with a registered guest in room 545 fell to her death from a balcony. The figure is most often associated with the fifth-floor corridor near 545 and with the inn's Palm Court atrium, and is described as gentle — encountered by children, engaging with wealthy male guests, and occasionally tickling toes of guests trying to sleep. Front-desk thank-you notes from parents whose children describe a "lady in pink" are part of the inn's documented lore.
Some regional writers have proposed that the figure could be tied to Zelda Fitzgerald, who was being treated for a nervous breakdown at Asheville's Highland Hospital while F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed at the Grove Park in rooms 441 and 443. The connection is speculative and not confirmed.
Atlas Obscura's coverage situates the Pink Lady within a broader pattern of historic-hotel ghost marketing, while regional ghost-tour writing treats the legend as an integral part of Asheville folklore.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Book a room at the 1913 stone-faced resort built by Edwin Wiley Grove. Room 545 and the surrounding fifth-floor corridor are most often tied to the Pink Lady tradition. Ten US presidents — from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama — and figures including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, and F. Scott Fitzgerald have stayed at the inn.
Eat in the historic Great Hall with its massive granite fireplaces, or in one of the resort's restaurants. The hall is open to the public outside private events.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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