In Excelsior Springs, Mo., a hotel with a haunted past and upscale future

But it also leans into its history. The story of the Elms begins with the discovery of healing mineral waters in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, in the late 1800s. People would come from all over to experience the dozen or so springs in town, particularly Siloam Spring, on the grounds of the Elms Hotel. Sometimes, miraculous tales of healing followed.

The Elms Hotel, about 30 minutes to the northeast of Kansas City, literally sprang up with these tales. In 1888 the original Elms was built. It was destroyed in a fire, as was its successor in 1910. The current iteration has been around since 1912. It’s now a full-service upscale Hyatt property.

Those ensuing years have seen a lot of history. Harry S. Truman stayed at the hotel the night he was elected president. Al Capone was a regular guest. There’s even an Al Capone Suite on the second floor. And you can tour the boardroom where his gambling parties used to happen and see the safe he hid contraband in.

Naturally, with all that history, ghost stories spring up: Doors that close without warning, TVs that go on and off. There’s the story of a dog that roams the hotel as well as the story of a gangster from Prohibition days who haunts the lap pool. The hotel was featured on an episode of “Ghost Hunters” in 2013.

You can learn all about the hauntings on one of the hotel’s nightly paranormal tours. A guide (thankfully equipped with a headset speaker) takes a group on a tour of all floors of the hotel. Our guide, Jay, recounted countless stories, sometimes of particular rooms. The thing that gets you is the scope and scale of them. There are so many, and according to Jay, that was just a small fraction. Thankfully, all the stories told were of harmless or even benevolent ghosts, except one. That’s when the tour got a little spooky for me, but for the most part it’s full of history and fun. The tours are $25; just sign up at the front desk.

The Elms has 152 guest rooms and suites and makes for a perfect girls getaway or couples weekend. Amenities include a 10,000-square-foot spa (more on that later), an indoor European lap pool, a fitness room, an outdoor pool with hot tubs and a walking trail. A cozy fireplace in the opulent, open lobby is a great place to have drinks with a friend.

Those healing waters

Now, because of some safety concerns and a number of other reasons, only a couple of those famous springs remain. One can be found in the basement at the Elms, its brown magnesium-rich waters bubbling up in the corner of the most gorgeous lap pool room you have seen.

But you can get a feel for the springs’ history at the Hall of Waters in downtown Excelsior Springs. The art deco building began in the 1930s as a public works project to take advantage of the springs’ reputation. It was both a bottling facility and a spa of sorts for the healing, medicinal mineral waters. There, in its gorgeous tiled hall is a bar. No, not used for wine or whiskey but for water. Will you take yours with iron, magnesium, calcium? Hot or cold?

Now, the building is used for city works with offices and even a courtroom. You can tour it, and the museum there, which features remnants of an old bath house. There’s also an empty competition-sized saltwater swimming pool and an empty polio pool in the lower levels. Some days, you can tour those.

You can learn more about the town at the Excelsior Springs Museum and Archives. Normally, I skip these small-town museums, but I found this one fascinating, mainly because it is housed in a building that was once the Clay County State Bank built in 1894. The magnificent gold ceiling is buttressed on each end by 100-year-old paintings, copies of Jean-François Millet’s paintings “The Gleaners” on the south wall and “The Angelus” on the north wall. There are even the original teller windows and a giant vault in the back.

Also in downtown Excelsior Springs you will find a number of antique shops and boutiques as well as restaurants and bars. Catch a show at the Slightly Off Broadway Theatre (sobtheatre.org) and definitely grab a beer at Atlas Saloon Brewery (atlassaloon.com). The space, including the cash register and wood bar have been around since the late 1800s, but the beer is worth a stop on its own; get a flight to taste as many as you can.

Dining in the hotel

Just as you enter the front doors at the Elms there is a cute bar to the right, Soterian, which serves coffee in the morning and wine in the evening. It has almost an upscale-soda-fountain vibe. To the left, is the hotel’s signature restaurant, Three Owls, which is open for breakfast (buffet on weekends), lunch and dinner. It’s a gorgeous space. I told my friend that aesthetically it may be my favorite restaurant ever. It has soaring ceilings, bright white walls with clever artwork, a fireplace and a sweeping staircase that leads to more seating. Its breakfast food (oh, my, that crème brûlée French toast) is as thoughtfully prepared as its short ribs. But it’s hard to pass up the perfectly cooked steak. On the second floor, there is a cozy bar called the Tavern. It sometimes has live music and serves small bites.

The Spa

For many couples and girlfriend groups, the draw here is the spa. Since “spa” is in the name of the hotel (The Elms Hotel & Spa), you know it’s a priority there. Whether you are there for couples massages, a girls-day facial or a more elaborate service, like a thermal mineral mudwrap, the spa leans into the hotel’s earlier days of healing and beautifying.

Its 28,000-square-feet include at least 15 treatment rooms, a sanctuary for relaxing and the Grotto, a modern twist on a Roman bath, which you can enjoy with your spa appointment. The Grotto Experience includes: steam shower, hot tub, cold plunge shower, steam sauna, dry sauna, and a self-service aromatherapy bar. You can pay $75 for the Grotto experience, but opt for a treatment and it’s included (for reference, my collagen facial, which was amazing, was $180).