AT THE Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, there is no room 434.
Well, at least there was. Due to a macabre demand for the storied room, it was retired as a place of rest for curious guests, the National Enquirer reported.
In February of 2012, singer Whitney Houston was found dead in the bathtub of suite 434.
Her death prompted an outpouring of grief in the music world whereas in the hotel world, or at least among curious would-be guests, it sparked a sick fascination with the site of the diva’s death.
“Ever since her death, the hotel has been overwhelmed with people from all over the world hoping to book the ‘Whitney room’,” a hotel source told the magazine earlier this year.
“They want to see where it happened, and people have started asking specifically to stay in room 434.”
After a reported stream of insensitive guests who partied in the room “like Whitney did” and even snapped pictures of themselves lying in the bath where it happened, the hotel retired the room and gave it a remodel.
The hotel source said if the facility’s management had its way, the next person who stayed in that room wouldn’t have a clue Whitney Houston died there.
While statistics on their frequency aren’t easy to come by, hotel deaths happen all the time.
Individual hotel chains, businesses, and even industry bodies are hesitant to discuss the issue. However, a senior industry source confirmed that it was unlikely future guests would be informed if their hotel room had been the scene of a disturbing death or crime.
Management at Adelaide’s Hotel Grand Chancellor wouldn’t tell us whether guests could still stay in a 12th-floor room that was the scene of a brutal murder last New Year’s Eve, when the body of a 26-year-old sex worker was found with her throat slit.
Melbourne’s luxurious Crown Metropol was similarly cagey, failing to answer questions over whether guests could unwittingly be staying in the eighth-floor room where 40-year-old Thornbury man Darren John Webb was found with his throat cut one early morning in July. However, a reservation inquiry about the specific room number revealed it apparently no longer existed.
On Monday of last week, the body of a man in his 40s was found in a suite of a Sydney CBD hotel with police declaring his death suspicious.
Police are continuing to appeal for witnesses to the matter.
Few details of the death are known, and it is of course unknown if any of those will be made known to future hotel guests.
While in the real estate world vendors are obliged to disclose details behind stigmatised properties, and can even use details of a disturbing death to boost their sales in certain cases, hoteliers have very different priorities. They work with authorities until the room can be made available for guests again.
Carol Giuseppi, the chief executive officer of peak hotel body Tourism Accommodation Australia, said hotels had rigorous procedures in place to ensure the safety and wellbeing of guests, but if something went wrong, staff were prepared.
“If there was any indication of an injury, illness or death, an experienced manager would attend the room to ascertain the situation with the guest,” she told news.com.au.
“In the rare occurrence of a death, police would be called straight away and the room sealed to ensure that the room was not disturbed.
“It would remain that way until authorities fully investigate the case and provide an all-clear for it to be made available again.”
Though it’s an issue the industry seems to think is better left unacknowledged, there is a macabre market for “death hotels”.
The site of Oscar Wilde’s 1900 death is now a popular tourist spot, with France’s L’Hotel even featuring a plaque about room 16 where the writer uttered his last words. It also stars in tours tracing significant places in Wilde’s history.
The Highland Garden Hotel has become a place of pilgrimage for Janis Joplin fans. The closet of room 105, where she died, is scrawled with handwritten tributes, according to Yelp reviews.
