Historic Hollywood Beach Resort

The Historic Hollywood Beach Resort, the 1925 "Grand Lady" of Hollywood Beach (formerly the Hollywood Beach Resort Hotel), is said to be haunted on its second and seventh floors. Local tradition links the hotel to Al Capone, who is said to have used the second floor as a hangout, and says that several women were strangled in Room 202, where guests report banging noises, cold spots and trouble breathing. The best-known apparition, the "Choking Ghost," is described as one of those women, seen on the floor gasping for help. Guests also describe an unseen figure following them, whispers, and invisible hands tugging at an arm or clothing on the second floor. On the seventh floor they report floating orbs, strange lights, a mildew smell, slamming doors and voices caught on recorders. No historical record of the killings has turned up, and whether Capone ever stayed here is unconfirmed.

Hollywood's founder, Joseph Young, built the hotel with some 500 rooms, and it survived the 1926 hurricane. It served as a U.S. Navy training school in World War II, later became a convention hotel, and housed Florida Bible College after 1971. It reopened as a hotel after a renovation in 1999. It is now vacant, and an engineer has said the building is no longer safe; in June 2026 a sale to Jorge Pérez's Related Group and BH Group was reported to be under contract.