The Spectral Mayor of Palm Beach Town Hall: His Honor the Ghost © 2018 by Dr. Philip Ernest Schoenberg, Ghost with a Blog #ghost

Palm Beach Town Hall, at 360 South County Road, built in 1925 has its own ghost, and why one of the best mayors that the town that still watches over his community. Paul Ilyinsky or HH Paul Romanovsky-Ilynsky (1928–2005) – senior male of Romanov Dynasty, Head of House of Holstein-Gottorp, Prince of Holstein-Gottorp, Duke of Holstein – Gottorp, Prince Romanovsky – Ilynsky, U.S. Marine Corps colonel, son of HIH Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, grandson of John J. Emery , nephew of John J. Emery. Ilyinsky was elected to the Palm Beach town council in 1981. Two years later, Ilyinsky ran unopposed and spent another term as council president. He won the mayor’s job in 1993 and served until 2000.

Prince Paul Romanovsky-Ilyinsky was born in 1928 at the U.S. Embassy in London. He reported that he was sometimes haunted by the spirit of Grigory Rasputin who his father had murdered. Ilyinsky, who was a U.S. citizen, attended Woodberry Forest School in Virginia and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, England, before joining the U.S. Marine Corps. He served with distinction as a combat photographer in the Korean War and retired a lieutenant colonel. Ilyinsky graduated from the University of Virginia in 1953. He made his money as a stockbroker in Cincinnati, Ohio before retiring to Florida. He served on the Palm Beach Council for 10 years and was mayor for three terms. He resigned for health reasons in 1999.

Paul Ilyinsky was named the first Distinguished Citizen of Palm Beach for his outstanding service to the Boy Scouts of America of Palm Beach County. After the Soviet Union broke apart in the early 1990s, Leningrad reverted to its original name of Saint Petersburg, and a private delegation visited Ilyinsky while he served on Palm Beach City Council to ask him to return to Russia to claim the throne as tsar. Ilyinsky said, “Gentlemen, I could not be more pleased and flattered at your invitation, but I must tell you that I am entirely satisfied with my present occupation.”

After Ilyinsky died at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, in February 2004, he started haunting Palm Beach’s town hall where he can be heard whistling the Czarist national anthem. He occasionally even shows up in April to give the state of the Palm Beach address which he did as mayor. Apparently, this was his happy place.

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