Source: www.TurfMagazine.com
Orlando, Fla.-based U.S. Lawns chose the historic and haunted Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg, Fla., as the location for their 2012 Annual Conference, August 2-4, 2012.
The grandest of all the 1920’s Boom Era resort hotels, the Vinoy, now named Vinoy Renaissance St. Petersburg Resort & Golf Club, was built in 1925. Famous past guests Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Stewart, Marilyn Monroe and others vacationed there. More recently, celebrities such as Paul Newman, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Jay Leno and Justin Bieber have enjoyed the resort. A host of past and present baseball players who attended spring training, including Babe Ruth, enjoyed the accommodations and spa treatments, and Major League Baseball teams stay there when they play the Tampa Bay Rays.
Famous celebrities often quietly come in and leave without a great deal of fuss. The guests who get more publicity than the celebrities are the ones that have continued roaming the halls for years. The ones you see from the corner of your eye, and then they’re gone. The ones you see through. The ones that go bump in the night. The ones that prompted the TAPS team from TV’s Ghost Hunters to investigate in 2008.
This year at the U.S. Lawns Annual Conference, along with the speeches, award presentations, educational sessions and EXPO, there may be the added intrigue of strange noises, ghosts, shadowy figures lurking about and elevator lights inexplicably blinking.