parent’s apartment. Most of the upstairs rooms all
shared a bathroom. I tried to clean it once, but it was
a losing battle.
“Most of the girls I was friends with on the island
weren’t allowed to go to my house. There were too
many rumors about what went on, and most of
them were true. My friend Shelley was one of the
only people allowed over, and she often spent the
night with me. We really didn’t do anything bad. I had
a radio, but no television. We didn’t get an air conditioner
until the end of my senior year in high school.
It tenuously hung out a window. The bathroom
situation was not good, but at least there was a sink
in my room. I think it made me a better person, but
I probably wouldn’t let my own daughter go into a
house like that.”
Dennis Edic, Darlene‘s brother, who worked for
painter Jimbo Wyman (Mark‘s brother) said, “Hell
was nothing but fun. When Gene Sampley was living
there, Mark was the owner and my dad was the
manager. Gene was the handyman and would trade
for rent. There was always a discrepancy about how
much Gene did or didn’t do around the place, and
he and Mark were always fi ghting about it.
“Mark kicked him out, but Gene would have
nothing to do with it, so he moved into the attic
because he didn’t want to leave. He had no place
to go. So Mark thought Gene was out, or at least
not around, and a couple showed up and wanted
to rent the place where Gene had been living.
Mark rented it to them. Nobody knew Gene
moved into the attic, or what we later called the
‘third-fl oor apartment.’ Gene could only get to the
third-fl oor by using the drop stairs that went into
the new tenants kitchen. They were sitting in the
apartment, and the stairs came out of the ceiling
and Jean climbed down. The couple didn’t stick
around.“
On the night of the fi re, the bottom fl oor
apartment in the two-story building was gutted.
Everything Billy Kamensky owned either went up
in fl ames or was soaked from fi re hoses. Some
blamed the damage on a burning candle no one
was sober enough to put out before they passed
out. Other say the fi re was the work of an arsonist.
The real cause was never discovered.
When the fi refi ghters had gone, Kamensky
surveyed what was left of his worldly possessions.
Sitting facedown on the fl oor was his cherished Jack
Barndollar painting of a schooner. The watercolor
had the print of a fi refi ghter’s boot on the back,
and Kamensky was sure it was ruined. When he
turned it over, the painting was intact. Some, including
Kamensky, think the ghost from Hell saved it.
“There were a number of times I felt the presence
of a ghost in my place, “Kamensky said. “I swear you
could hear voices when there wasn’t anyone else
around.”
Wyman thinks the ghost saved his life and the lives
of others crowded in the small apartments upstairs
and down.
“We never knew who was banging on the door
yelling fi re, fi re, fi re, but some of us think it was
the ghost from Hell, “Wyman said. “A lot of people
told me they heard weird things in the middle of the
night and believed the building was haunted.”
Wyman remembers Lee county offi cials asked
him to change the name so it was more fi tting for
genteel Boca Grande. He told them he wasn’t going
to change the name. He said the place was hell, and
it was probably going to stay that way.
Check out the May/June issue of Gasparilla
Magazine for Part II of the Hotel Hell story.
Jeff and Gladys Gaines Black were two of the children who
frequented the Quick Hotel, the former name of Hotel Hell.
Gladys was there when the hurricane of 1926 came
through, and the water rushed through the building. This
shot was taken circa 1920.
March/April 2020 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE 47