From the Ghost Girl to the Lady in White, the chilling stories of apparitions at the Eden Hotel

“Do you want to come play with me?”. The 5-year-old girl visited the Eden hotel with her parents and said that another girl had asked her this question from one of the rooms on the first floor.

They all went up to that bedroom with the guide, they felt a strange cold sensation in the middle of the summer of 2006 and she said that the girl was very sick. When asked to draw it, he included a bed and a bucket: “There he spits.”he stated.

Then, the hotel guides searched historical documents and discovered that the first owner, Maria Herbert de Kreautner, narrated in her memoirs: “A few days after opening the doors of the Eden Hotel, the joy was short-lived because an 8-year-old girl died”.

And what did the funeral notices of the time say? They were talking about “Phantom Girl” (her name was Ana Jaime de Abarca, daughter of the doctor of former president Julio A. Roca), who He had died of tuberculosis in Eden in 1898.

This story was added to many testimonies of apparitions and ghostly presences in an accommodation that gave rise to La Falda at the end of the 19th century and to the tourist development of the Punilla Valley, in Córdoba, in the first decades of the 20th.

In those years, tuberculosis was incurable and the Eden facilities (originally without an accent, but with use became Spanish) in the middle of the mountains with pure air were the health tourism option preferred by wealthy Argentine and European families.

75 km from the city of Córdoba, former German army officer Roberto Bahcke, Juan Kurth and Maria Herbert de Kreatner ordered the construction of the large hotel in 1897 after acquiring 900 hectares of the La Falda ranch and asking Ernesto for a loan. Tornquist.

In turn, the Córdoba Railway NO added a stop that was going to be called Km 78 and the first guests began to arrive: the official opening date of Eden was December 26, 1898.

The hotel was unique in several aspects: it had no competition, it grew under the idea of ​​“German efficiency” and there was concern about lung diseases (for example, tuberculosis) in a time without antibiotics and when doctors recommended isolation and clean, dry air. Eden was ideal for that.

Some families of the Argentine aristocracy began to frequent the place, such as the Martínez de Hoz, Tornquist, Bianchi, Bunge, Anchorena, Blaquier and Peralta Ramos. They settled all summer and rubbed shoulders with European tourists escaping winter and tuberculosis.

In a hotel that It had its own electricity and postal servicelaundry and ice and ice cream machines, The poet Rubén Darío, the scientist Albert Einstein and the musician Arturo Toscanini passed by there.and Edward of Windsor, Umberto II of Italy and former presidents Roca and Figueroa Alcorta stayed, among others.

The hotel had 100 rooms, electric light generated by its own power plant, cold room, central heating and two kitchens (one for savory foods and one for sweets). There were also orchards, farm animals, a dairy farm and a slaughterhouse.

The dining room had capacity for 250 people.to which was added the Imperial Hall (a live orchestra played at parties) and a games room where you could play chess, ping-pong and billiards.

There was also tennis and bocce courts; an open terrace where guests played dominoes with views of the mountains; the Patio de las Damas, to have tea in the shade of the eucalyptus trees, and the Patio Cervecero where the men met.

The place had, in turn, two internal patios, one digs with 10 thousand bottles, a stable, a Carrara marble water fountain with two carved lions.

However, Eden did not provide the profits that its maintenance required and in 1905 the society was dissolved. Tornquist kept the property and Maria Herbert de Kreautner took charge of the hotel, so he began to promote the hotel abroad until 1912 when he sold it to the German brothers Walter and Bruno Eichhorn: they subdivided the land, giving origin to La Falda.

In the mid-1920s, Walter Eichhorn and his wife Ida Bonfert traveled frequently to Germany, where not only They met Adolf Hitler but they joined the National Socialist German Workers Party and supported financially.

Was Hitler in the hotel? There are no documents to prove it, but some people – like Catalina Damero, who worked in the Eichhorn house – said they had seen him in Córdoba in those years.

After the sinking of the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee in the Río de la Plata, seven sailors traveled to La Falda and began working at the hotel.

As explained in the book “Eden Hotel. The birth of a town. History and chronology”by several authors – among them, Ariel Mansani, who was a guide for decades -, in the 1930s a new ballroom, a skating rink, an open-air theater and an attached chalet were built, in addition to increasing the number of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Other additions were the swimming pool, the golf course, the Chinese Bar, the mechanical workshop, the hairdresser, the printing press, the telephone booths, the antennas and radio receivers (it is believed that Hitler’s speeches were heard live). and the changes in its façade with a more colonial style and tile roofs.

In addition to the Phantom Girl, some visitors claimed to have seen a lady leaning out of the windows, whom they called the Lady in White, who was about 1.90 meters tall: it is believed that she is the ghostly presence of Ida Bonfert by Eichhorn.

Crying babies at night, dark figures, intense cold… The anecdotes of guides and tourists are repeated, especially in the hallway where the Phantom Girl’s room was and the ironing, maintenance and mechanical workshop area.

For this reason, a few years ago, the guides launched nighttime guided tours and soon 200 people began to attend each 2-hour tour, including the projection of a video to get in the mood and the tour of the building in the dark, with flashlights.

Germany’s defeat in World War II swept away the hotel in 1945, which was declared “enemy state property” and was used for a time for members of the Japanese diplomatic corps.

Although the eagle that was on top of Eden was taken down because it was considered a Nazi symbol, there are historical theories that claim that the bronze eagle was part of the façade since the hotel’s inauguration.

Around 1947, the government of Juan Domingo Perón returned the property to its former owners, and the Eichhorns sold it to a firm known as Tres K (businessmen Kartulovich, Kamburis and Kutscher), while some versions attribute the property to Juan Duarte.

In 1953 it was decided to auction the hotel and, during the following decade, it passed from hand to hand until it closed definitively at the end of the ’60s: its manager was Armando Balbín, brother of the radical leader Ricardo Balbín.

Then there were renovations that were left in half and attempts to install a casino in the ’70s, but The building was abandoned and suffered numerous lootings until 1988. when it was declared a Municipal Historical Monument and, a year later, of Provincial Interest.

In 1998 it was put up for public auction and only in 2006 it was put out to tender through a local private initiative.

turned into a historical museumthe Edén Hotel began offering day and night tours, as well as shows and events in its rooms.

Every day, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; There is a cultural-historical tour and a wine and liquor tasting. It costs $3,500 per person and children under 10 years old enter free of charge. The visit lasts about 2 hours and is not canceled due to bad weather.

Instead, the Fridays and Saturdays at 9 p.m., visits “of a recreational, esoteric and mystical nature” are organizedbased on urban legends, with real testimonies that claim to have seen or perceived the presence of paranormal phenomena.

“The tour of the property is completely darkwhere the only ones who carry light are the guides. “Myths, legends and apparitions in the hotel are addressed (not its official history),” Clarín is informed from Eden.

With a duration of 2 hours, admission costs $4500 and requires prior reservation (3548-630636).

The hotel does not consider a visit suitable for children under 13 years of age.which is at the complete discretion of the parents. Meanwhile, children under 7 years old cannot enter.

The Edén Hotel has welcomed international productions to investigate and experience paranormal activities, allowing everyone to immerse themselves in other aspects of the history contained within its walls.