Battery Park Apartments (Former Hotel)

Originally built in 1886 on the site of a Civil War battery and rebuilt in 1924, the Battery Park Hotel was once Asheville's premier destination. Now converted to senior apartments, the building's Art Deco architecture conceals a tragic history.

The Battery Park Hotel rose during Asheville's railroad boom in the early twentieth century, becoming a favorite destination for weary travelers seeking the mountain air. But a gruesome murder on July 16, 1936, would tarnish the hotel forever, leaving what some describe as a permanent spiritual stain throughout the fourth floor.

Helen Clevenger was a nineteen-year-old from Staten Island, staying at the hotel with her uncle William, an N.C. State University professor. She was exploring the South for the first time after completing her freshman year at New York University. A thunderous storm raged that night, and no one heard the gunshot. Around 8:30 the next morning, her uncle opened her unlocked hotel room door to find her bloodied body crumpled on the floor. She had been shot through the chest and beaten in the face.

Eleven days later, police arrested Martin Moore, a twenty-two-year-old Black bellhop who worked at the hotel. The investigators beat him for twenty minutes, demanding he confess. They told him they would beat him to death. They told him they had found his bloody fingerprints on the light bulb in Helen's room—they had not. Martin finally gave in, later recalling that officers "helped me explain it, and told me what to say." Six months after the murder, he was executed in the state gas chambers. With little evidence against him and a coerced confession, many historians now consider him an innocent scapegoat.

The spirits of both Helen Clevenger and Martin Moore are said to haunt the building today. People living in the apartments have reported hearing a service elevator running on its own between midnight and three in the morning—going up and down with no passengers. When repair workers are called, the elevator checks out fine, only to resume its phantom journeys that night. Operating that very elevator had been Martin Moore's station. Paranormal investigators believe spirits sometimes repeat familiar actions from life.

During its years as a hotel, guests reported that the ghost of a murdered hotel guest frequently followed employees around. At least two male suicide victims who jumped from the roof are sometimes seen plummeting toward the ground before vanishing in mid-air.

After the murder, business declined sharply when several magazines referred to the establishment as "The Murder Hotel." The building is now the Battery Park Apartments for seniors. Recent renovations may have stirred the supernatural activity, though the property is off-limits to paranormal investigators. The full story is documented in Anne Chesky Smith's 2021 book, "Murder at Asheville's Battery Park Hotel: The Search for Helen Clevenger's Killer." Nearly a century later, many believe Helen's true killer was never found—and that neither she nor Martin Moore has found peace.