The Dayton Executive Hotel

I don't know if you could call these lobby stairs grand, but just like the "Grand Staircase" on Titanic, this one is also covered in water. It's hardly a welcoming site for guests at the lobby check-in, but any guests the Dayton Executive Hotel sees these days aren't of the "normal" variety.

I'm not sure how all the garbage accumulated. The entire place is trashed, but the stairs are especially. Vandals? Scrappers? Hobos? Who knows. Back then, we were guests on a cold, rainy afternoon. Unlike most hotel visitors, we weren't looking for a place to stay for the night. We were just there to check it out - photograph it, document it.

- Lobby check-in.

I had passed this hotel on a road trip a few months back. You could tell it was abandoned from the highway. I wanted to stop and check it out, but didn't have time. I'm never really in Dayton unless I'm passing through or going to see a Gems hockey game at the legendary Hara Arena. Budda and I met up after I got off work. He had the hook up and knew some local guys who could show us what Dayton had to offer. Lucky for me, the place we hit up was the abandoned hotel I had seen from the highway back over the previous Summer.

We arrived in "The Gem City," and met up with "Trap" and "Warbird;" two friendly fellow explorers. When exploring an abandoned building in an unfamiliar area it's always nice to have locals who can help you and share your interest, especially ones who also exercise caution and take patience with you and your camera. These guys were great hosts.

- Take out menus strewn about the lobby.

Trap pointed out gang symbols spray painted on the fence surrounding the hotel's abandoned parking lot. He also warned us that when his crew had been here before, they had seen signs of people squatting there. Not that a squatter would intend to harm you, but better just to be alert anyways. The place was in total disrepair. As I mentioned before, even from the nearby highway you could tell the hotel was abandoned. Boards had fallen off the windows they were meant to protect and a loading dock with a ramp down to the basement was filled with water up to the parking lot's level, a preview of what was to be seen inside.

- Water flooded in the lower level of the lobby and throughout the bottom floor.

No one in our group of explorers knew what had caused the flooding. The ceiling was totally gone in some areas, could it have been rain water? Broken plumbing? The crumbling billboard out front advertised convention rooms, but we didn't see any. Perhaps they were downstairs, but we'd never know if they were - or what else was down there for that matter.

The place is a total disaster. I'm no expert on structural integrity or renovation, but I'd take a bet on "beyond repair." In addition to the obvious water problem, the place has been gutted for scrap metal. When it had been open, the hotel was in better condition, but apparently not by much. According to TripAdvisor.com, the hotel had a 2.5 out of 5 star rating. 1 person ranked it "excellent," thirteen others ranked it as "terrible" (the single "excellent" review is written by a user who's only ranked one hotel and sounds suspiciously like they worked for the place). Horror stories include this little anecdote:

"Really scary hotel. Dirty rooms, broken locks, dark parking lot. The other people at the hotel were there with their "dates". Do not even get near this hotel - go further north on I75. Best Western should be ashamed. " Per: TripAdvisor.com

Apparently, before it became the independent "Dayton Executive," it had been a Best Western and even with the corporate moniker it had pretty negative reviews. The most recent report came from 2007 and wasn't much better. I assume the hotel closed around then.

Edit: 9:38 A.M. 2/29/12 - A friend of mine shared this info on the QC/D Facebook page. Thanks for the info Aaron!

- According to the Dayton Daily News, the hotel had 253 rooms and went up for auction in April of 2008 after being delinquent in over $450,000 in taxes.
- In 2008 the hotel's assessed value was $3.3 Million.
- According to its current property listing it's valued at $2.9 Million (clearly they need to re-think that, eh?).
- The hotel originally opened in 1962.

Just off the lobby was a bar/restaurant. Retro in style, I had this vision of 1980's Dayton auto workers enjoying happy hour while listening to some local lounge singer trying to cover Wayne Newton.

Nearly every window on the ground floor had been smashed out. A common area, which looked to have once been a dining area was starting to become overgrown with the surrounding brush from the court yard.

- The Dayton Crew.

In the center of the dining area there were rubber bike tires with a rope tied around them. The contraption was hanging from what remained of the drop ceiling. Trap volunteered to show us that it was a makeshift tire swing.

The week before, I had just started re-watching "The Walking Dead," a television show about a post apocalyptic zombie outbreak. Usually when I explore abandoned buildings I'm on edge. You have to be cautious, ready to make a run if unexpected visitors appear. At any second, I felt like I'd round a corner right into a "walker," now matter how unrealistic the television show may be.

A few years back I had explored an abandoned hotel near Cincinnati. It too had once been a Best Western with really awful reviews. Apparently that's a trend? We climbed upstairs, dodging debris everywhere. The top floor wasn't in much better shape. Evidence of squatters could be seen in some rooms and the bathrooms had been ripped apart by scrap thieves.

Dead plants lined the stairwells as we headed back down. Water dripped through the ceiling almost everywhere we went.

Back on the ground floor we found one of the most interesting features: the indoor pool. Although, lets be honest - the whole bottom half of this hotel is now an indoor pool.

Like the whole hotel itself, the pool wasn't in much better shape when it was open either. Online reviews described it as having green and brown "gunk" at the bottom. Shaped like a kidney bean and surrounded by an odd combination of tile and carpet, the pool was filled with trash. A nearby weight room was stocked with rusted out 80's style Nautilus equipment. The smell of these rooms was putrid and it probably wasn't smart to be in the room without a ventilator mask so we got out of there pretty quickly. The rain continued to pour as we made our exit. No zombies, thankfully. Had I been a guest here, I probably would've concurred about the poor condition of my lodging choice. However, as an urban explorer, I'd have to rate the Dayton Executive as a good place to start photographing abandoned buildings once again after a stretch of absence from the subject.

Update | Oct. 21, 2017:

• The Dayton Executive Hotel eventually met the wrecking ball in 2015. My friend Mike was able to snag some photos before it came down.