The Old Mayfair Hotel

The Old Mayfair Hotel: an excerpt from Haunts & Hollows: Florida Coast.

For some buildings, the tall tales that haunt their halls are just one part of the story. Such is the case of Sanford’s grand Mayfair Hotel. Originally known as the Hotel Forrest Lake, this massive, three-story Mediterranean Revival complex was designed by local architect Elton J. Moughton at the request of then-mayor Forrest Lake. The 158-room hotel opened in 1925, the central jewel in a waterfront beautification plan that included the unveiling of Seminole Boulevard.

Within three years, the hotel quietly shut its doors following an investment scandal that took down both Mayor Lake and Seminole Country Bank. Soon after, Forrest and bank vice president A. R. Key were arrested on charges of embezzling more than half a million dollars from the bank.
Found guilty on all charges, Forrest was sentenced to 14 years in prison, serving six years before receiving a pardon from the governor. He returned to Sanford during the depth of the Great Depression, penniless and living on the streets. The former mayor died in early 1939 after a two-week-long illness, and he is now buried in nearby Evergreen Cemetery next to his wife Mary Maude Anno.

During Forrest’s incarceration, the City of Sanford purchased the property and renamed it the Mayfair Hotel. Over the years the site has changed hands several times, owned for years by the New York Giants, the Kirchoff family, the U.S. Navy, and most recently the missionary group the New Tribes Mission, now known as Ethnos360. In 2025, Ethnos360 sold the hotel to another evangelical group, World Olivet Assembly.

In the 100 years since it first opened its doors, the Mayfair Hotel has earned a reputation as a paranormal hot spot. Two specters are said to roam the building’s halls: the shadowy figure of a mustached man and a flickering woman in white. Many suggest that the man is the remnant of the site’s former owner, Mayor Forrest Lake. In the afterlife he has been drawn back to the Mayfair, the site of his greatest failure and his financial ruin. According to eyewitnesses, the ghost never speaks and always appears to be walking away from whomever might observe him. He is usually only seen in darkened hallways or in the reflection of a window or mirror.

The woman in white is less known but more often encountered. She wanders the ground-floor rooms of the hotel, favoring the public areas after night has fallen. Like her shadowy colleague, the woman never speaks, but instead she is accompanied by the soft sounds of a non-existent piano playing off in the darkness.