It Is The Season For Tall Tales Of The Unexplainable--Two Old Hotels And Two Famous Ladies

It's that time of year again, the month of October. The moment in the calendar when the warmth from the light of day begins to sell out and the cool from the dark of night begins to cash in. Yet, the chill you feel brushing over your skin as the sun disappears into the blackening shadows of the fading day may be more than a change in the temperature. It's the perfect environment for telling tall tales dealing in the unexplainable and old hotels with storied pasts provide the best material. Let's check into two North American hotels where the promise of a sleepless night is a selling point.

Just an oyster toss form Charleston and located in Asheville, NC, the Grove Park Inn opened on July 12, 1913. In the decades to follow, it has become one of the South's most famous and highly venerated resorts with a long tradition of exceptional service and hospitality. Presidents William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, George H. W. Bush, William J. Clinton and Barack H. Obama along with notable personages, such as Harry Houdini and Thomas Edison to name a couple, have crossed its threshold along with many other visitors who came to bask in the spectacular views and revel in its lush amenities. One of those visitors, a young woman, who arrived one evening many years ago, has never left. She has become known as The Pink Lady by the Inn's staff.

It was the early 1920's--the decade of jazz music, speakeasies, flappers, and a dance craze called "The Charleston". The retreating sun's orange and red rays were filtering through the ghostly haze of the Blue Ridge Mountains and settling on the tree tops of Asheville just below the granite clad Grove Park Inn.

A young woman entered the Inn's Great Hall, secured a room at the lobby desk, and checked into room 545 where she put on a pink ball gown and waited for her love interest to arrive. Shortly thereafter, a message was delivered. The elegantly dressed lady left the room, positioned herself at the fifth floor balcony overlooking the Palm Court atrium, and flung herself over the rails ending her life. As the story tells, this was not an ordinary rendezvous. Her lover was a married man who decided to call an end to their affair that fateful night.

That account is just one version of the story. According to the Asheville Paranormal Society, the young woman, named Katie, was pushed from the upper floor of the Inn onto the stones of the Palm Court atrium. It seems she was a servant in a wealthy aristocratic household and her lover was the master of the house who had a reputation to protect. Katie had become an inconvenience. She was pregnant.

Picture courtesy of Ghost Hunters of Asheville

Whatever the case may be, since that tragic night the young woman has been seen by staff and guests in the form of a pink mist, or sometimes as a full-fledged apparition appearing in a pink ball gown throughout the Grove Park Inn, but with a particular attachment to room 545.

The apparition of the Pink Lady is also said to enjoy playing small pranks. She's been blamed for lights, air conditioners, and other electrical devices turning on and off by themselves. She seems to enjoy rearranging objects in the rooms. It's also been said that she will occasionally wake up a sleeping guest with a good tickling on the feet.

The Grove Park Inn has dedicated a drink to their ghost resident rightfully called The Pink Lady. A spectral mix of vodka, acai and pomegranate juices, and pistachio simple syrup.

For our next tale from the dark side, we head across continent to Vancouver, Canada. The first Hotel Vancouver was a five-story, brick structure that looked and functioned much like a farmhouse. The second, started in 1912 and completed in 1916, was built in a grand Italianate revival style, and was considered one of the great hotels of the British Empire. It was turned into a government administration building during World War II and torn down in 1949. The present Hotel Vancouver, at a cost of $12 million, took 11 years to build and opened in May of 1939, in time for the Royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The towering Fairmont Hotel Vancouver is also known as "The Castle in the City".

Back in the 1940s, the very elegant Jennie Pearl Cox was a regular at the Fairmont Hotel's ballroom. Then, one calamitous evening in 1944, she was killed in a car crash just outside of the hotel. She was wearing her favorite red dress. From that moment, she took up residence in the hotel and became known as The Lady in Red. She has been seen passing through elevator doors on the 1st and 14th floors.

The Hotel was originally built with eight elevator shafts to accommodate the large number of guests. However, budget problems forced builders to install only six elevators, leaving two shafts empty. Porters, employees, and guests have all claimed to catch this mysterious woman after rounding the corner on the mezzanine level, just as she opens the door to get on or off the elevator. But here's the catch: the shaft is empty--there is no elevator or even a door.

It would seem one of these empty shafts is reportedly home to The Lady in Red, but her floor of choice is the 14th. She has also been seen in rooms and the Hotel's bellmen have claimed to witness her entering rooms just as they are checking in hotel guests. Her presence has been embraced by the Hotel and she is considered by many to be the nicest ghost in the city.

Notch 8

The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver's highly celebrated restaurant located in its lobby, Notch 8, honors The Lady in Red with a drink of its own called the Lavender Corpse Reviver 15. It is concocted with a eerily superb blend of Hendricks Gin, Fresh Lemon, Cointreau, Lillet Blanc, and Lavender Mist. Lavender enhances the natural botanicals in the gin.

The Mysterious Side Of Charleston-Uncommon Things You Don't See Everyday

Dock Street Theater

Charleston is charming, but also mysterious. It is renowned for its old homes and church graveyards, many with bizarre tales of ghostly encounters and things that go bump in the night. The Battery Carriage House Inn has its “gentleman ghost” and the headless torso and Poogan's Porch's resident apparition is an old lady by the name of Zoe St Amand. Junius Brutus Booth, father of John Wilkes Booth, is said to appear at the Dock Street Theater and Lavinia Fisher, famous for saying, “If you have a message you want to send to hell, give it to me – I’ll carry it,” haunts the Old City Jail. Many other such tales abound throughout Charleston and its streets. Even its barrier islands tell of pirate ghosts and confederate soldiers.

I have not personally experienced any of these types of encounters, but I have seen things that border on the peculiar. While traveling in and around Charleston you could see some strange and unusual things. Not saying that Charleston is the only place in this big country you could be confronted with the bizarre and unusual, other places have their own unique blend of quaint happenings. In the Lowcountry, the farther off the beaten track you go, the more bizarre some things may get. Some of them make perfect sense and others make no sense at all. Although, to the originator it probably appears very practical.

The first is the blue bottle tree. While I wouldn't categorize this as being bizarre, it is unusual. You see them all over the Lowcountry, on peoples front yards, gardens, porches and even one at the corner of a busy Summerville intersection called Five Points. To the originators, slaves from the Congo, the blue bottle tree was more than a lawn ornament and the idea behind its creation made perfect sense to them. Its purpose was to protect the home from evil spirits. The blue bottle tree was placed outside, near the home. The threatening evil spirits are drawn to the sparkling,blue bottles, cobalt blue to be more exact. Once inside the bottle they can't get out. The sun rises in the morning and burns them up, as one version tells it. Another version relates the bottles being corked and thrown into a river to carry the evil spirits away. Anyway you bottle it, the home was thus protected.

Both strange and unusual are appropriate adjectives for the next entry. I first happened upon this soon to become an iconic piece of Edisto Island history some years ago while driving the roads less traveled, at least by me. It was an old mattress hanging by four ropes from a large oak tree. Admittedly, at first I thought the peculiar sight to be rather repulsive. A mattress left outdoors, subject to the heat and humidity of the Lowcountry summer, would likely become a smelly, heap of decaying fibers over time. But then, as I reflected back over the uncommon spectacle, I found it to be amusingly uncanny, and so did many others who happened upon this contrivance posing as a double-wide hammock. It was the famed "Mattress Swing" and the place at which it hung was known to some of Edisto's oldest islanders as "Mattress Point." It was an ingenious invention of practicality and southern comfort. It was audacious. So audacious, the maker and owner of the swinging quilted pad, Frank Gadsden, charged drive-bys $10 to take pictures. The "Mattress Swing" no longer hangs from the old oak tree standing at the bend in the road on SC-174. Time and unforeseen circumstances have vanquished it.

White Gables, a quaint southern community development off of Central Ave in Summerville, is patterned after the colorful row houses of Charleston. One delivery man referred to it as the crayon box houses. The main entrance drive is flanked on each side by ponds, and once you past the first stop sign, lined with live oak trees. A clubhouse straight ahead and beyond a green area with benches and gazebos, stands as a center piece and hub of activity. It is a close knit community where the uncommon is as foreign as a Steeler jersey in the Dawg Pound of Cleveland Stadium. Until one day, a friend happened upon a freakish sight sitting on the lawn of a resident and shared it with me. A mechanical conjoinment of two dissimilar objects reminiscent of the Transformers. Someone finally discovered a way to mix work and play with this amalgamation of steel and wheels. It was a bike and a grass mower fused into one.

My final entry is unusual, but not bizarre. I happened upon it while visiting one of my favorite hangouts in Summerville, the Coastal Coffee Roasters, which is a contradiction for me because I don't partake of the dark, aromatic brew. While freshly roasted coffee from organically grown beans is Coastal Coffee Roasters niche, it is much more. Spending time there is like hanging out at a neighbor's garage for a community party complete with beverages and live entertainment, and if you are so inclined you can bring your own acoustic guitar to pick a few of your own favorites. CCR calls it open mic night.

It was on such a night I saw this unusual object sitting on CCR's counter. At first glance, from a distance, it looked like an oil lamp, but when the burner was put underneath, it eerily resembled a chemistry experiment. "What is that," I inquired. Brad answered, "A Japanese coffee siphon brewer." To satisfy my insatiable curiosity, I demanded an explanation, which involved another science, the laws of physics. So, a demonstration was needed, because seeing is believing, or something like that. Brad lit the burner and we watched. The whole process defies the laws of gravity and the end result is a pure cup of brewed coffee that even I had to try.

See you around the Lowcountry and beautiful Charleston.

Summerville Ghost Stories And The Blue Bottle Tree Along with A Festival At The Ponds

blue bottle tree at W. Carolina and Tupper

In Summerville, there is an area where three roads converge unto South Main Street to make a single intersection of five points. The roads are W. Carolina Ave, E. Carolina Ave, and Tupper Lane. I have driven through this intersection many times and have often wondered about the significance of the strange potted ornament placed at the point where W. Carolina Ave and Tupper Lane come together. It was always just a brief curiosity because I never made any real effort to find out what the strange looking tree-like structure with blue bottles stuck on its branches was. Until recently, and only by accident, I stumbled upon the answer. I was researching ghost stories in the Summerville area. Not surprsing, it's called a blue bottle tree and quite common throughout the South.

Today, it is mainly nothing more than a decoration people put in their gardens and on their lawns, but in history the blue bottle tree is steeped in superstitions brought here by African slaves. The color blue was believed to ward off spirits, more specifically, the evil kind. The bottles on the bottle tree are thought to entice the evil spirits into climbing inside during the evening hours where they become trapped. Then, the morning sun comes up and the sunlight kills the spirits. Quite an ingenious idea, if you believe in such things. Also, a nifty way of making good use of empty wine bottles, if you like the idea of a blue bottle tree in your yard.

Old City Jail

Charleston is rich with a diverse collection of varying cultures each laced with their own blend of superstitions and beliefs, necessary ingredients for inventing interesting ornaments and compiling ghost stories to entertain the many tourists who come here to experience history at its best. Poogan's Porch tells stories of encounters with a ghost named Zoe St. Armand, a woman who once lived there. She is sometimes heard banging things around in the kitchen. Battery Carriage House Inn is known as “Charleston’s most haunted inn." It is home to the “gentleman ghost” and the headless torso. Want to reserve a room for the scare of it? The Dockstreet Theater has two ghosts wandering within its walls, a male ghost dressed in formal attire, thought to be Junious Brutus Booth, and an alleged prostitute. You will need tickets for this show. No tickets needed on Church Street, which is lined with plenty of graveyards, but a tour guide would be helpful. Last but not least, Lavinia Fisher awaits your presence at the Old City Jail. The stories are many and the tours are plenty. Check out Bulldog Tours.

Summerville has its share of ghost stories as well. One notable story is associated with The Ponds, a community located on Highway 17A where Dorchester Rd ends. The entrance is marked by a tower. The Ponds has a history dating back to 1682. Plenty of time for human activity and interaction needed to create stories of mystery tainted by an active imagination. The first owner of the land built a plantation called Westin Hall. His name was Andrew Percival. From 1723 to 1765, the Donning family of England had controlling interest in the plantation until they sold it.

Several families from that point in time owned it and for over a hundrerd years it was a rice plantation. John Shultz took ownership in 1818 and later his son. After returning from the Civil War, having served in the First South Carolina Mounted Militia, Frederick Schultz eventually sold it to Edward Lotz in 1881. Edward Lotz became a lumber dealer and made shingles out of the numerous cypress trees growing on the land. Edward Lotz is where the ghost story begins. Today, it seems he makes a nightly visit to the old farmhouse to make sure everything is well. Sorry, nothing ghastly or gruesome to report. It seems the lands history has been one of tranquility.

The Ponds is also a center for local area events and community activities. World-renowned arts shows, outdoor music festivals, and sporting events have unfolded on this one-time plantation. There is an outdoor amphitheater on the property located next to the lake. This Saturday, April 21st, the Southern Flame - The Southern Food Festival Under the Oaks kicks-off. The time is 11 am to 8 pm. It is $10 to park all day with food and berverage tickets available. There will be a BBQ Competition and a People’s Choice Southern Foods Competition. Live bluegrass and rock music will keep you dancing. Eddie Bush and The Mayhem are the featured group. Join the fun and stick around after dark to see if Edward Lotz likes what he sees.

Charleston Is Both Fascinating and Entertaining-Come And Live The Story

Charleston is amalgamated with stories brimming full of mystery, intrigue, and historical importance. Whether fact or fiction, they are an intregal part of Charleston's persona. They breath life into every brick, plank, cobblestone, and iron gate that have been fused together into the mass of buildings and homes that form today's Holy City. They are spouted from every corner and doorstep. They are inescapable.

It wasn't always like this. There was a period of time when the life spark was close to being extinguished. Charleston, like the Planters Hotel, had fallen into near ruin. The stories were there, but the bricks, planks, and cobblestones had become infested with disinterest, dangling from a noose like Stede Bonnet at White Point. Although, the fate of Charleston turned out differently then the "gentleman pirate's" fate thanks to a modern day renaissance, an awakening into everything historical.

You will be warmed by the story of Poogan, a once homeless dog that found his way onto the porch of a home being renovated into a restaurant now known as Poogan's Porch. Maybe, while you are there enjoying some upscale Lowcountry cuisine, you might hear a ruckus in the kitchen, pots and pans banging around. That would be Zoe St. Amand making her presence known, a native Charlestonian who lived in the house at one time. Yes, lived, as in the past tense.

One of Charleston's most infamous characters, Lavinia Fisher, is the climax of Charleston's scariest tours at the Old City Jail. Lavinia, along with her husband, poisoned guests at their inn with oleander tea, robbed them, and hacked up their bodies and stashed them in the cellar. She was put on trial and executed by hanging at the Old City Jail where she is said to make appearances from time to time. Supposedly, her final words before the rope snapped were, "If anyone has a message for hell, give it to me-I'll deliver it." She maybe somewhat ticked-off because a recent investigation into the legend shows she may have been innocent. Something to do with corrupt politicians. Now, that I can believe.

Another quaint story you will hear on a carriage ride in the French Quarter pertains to three houses at 23, 25, and 27 Meeting Street. The guide speaks of how they were built by a wealthy Charleston father for his three daughters, who were so ugly that he figured they would never marry and have a home of their own. That's the narrative. The simple truth may point to a different explanation. Their similar architectural styles may have something to do with the title, Three Sisters. Which account is more intrtiguing to you?

If you are a bit squeamish or easily frightened by such stories of ghosts and things that go bump in the night, there are plenty of iron gated mansions with gardens to tour that are filled with real life artifacts, not to leave out the beautiful plantations, each with a documented history of its own. Fort Sumter guards its harbor and greets the passing cruise ships. The South Carolina Aquarium gives you a quick peak at its topography and wildlife.

The fact of the matter, Charleston is both facsinating and entertaining. Its hotels are a testimony to its hospitality and grace. Its restaurants are a declaration to its unique blend of Lowcountry cuisine. Its numerous tours and historical carriage rides will familiarize you to what is the beating heart of the South.

Come, step into the antebellum past for a day or a week. As an added bonus, immerse yourself into everything the present has to offer in the way of sandy beaches, boating, fishing, golfing, and shopping. Click on Charleston Attractions for a complete list of things to do.  

Charleston's Nighttime Fun Should Include a Trip To The Footlight Theatre

We all like to be entertained with a good scare once in awhile. Remember the fun times sitting in a semi-dark room on a stormy night or around a crackling campfire taking turns at telling scary stories and seeing who could come up with the most sinister plot. That was how Mary Shelley gave birth to her first novel now known as "Frankenstein".

Sorrel-Weed House

While vacationing on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, Mary and her friends amused themselves by reading German ghost stories, prompting a suggestion they each write their own supernatural tale. Mary's scary tale was conceived in a waking dream she had one night. She wrote a short story about her horrific dream and later expanded it into the famous novel. Needless to say, her story took the honor of being the scariest tale that infamous night.

Looking for inspiration for a winning scary novel? Savannah was dubbed by The American Institute of Parapsychology as "America's Most Haunted City". The Sorrel-Weed House at 6 W Harris Street at Madison Square was featured on Ghost Hunters and is one of the top ten creepiest places in America. Be sure to take the 10:30pm tour for the greatest affect, if you dare.

Charleston's darker side can most certainly fuel the imagination and inspiration for a winning frightful tale. Travel Channel designated Charleston "America's Most Haunted Places". Take an inside look at Charleston's haunted Old City Jail, enter the Provost Dungeon, or visit Poogan's Porch where Zoe makes her presence known. Walk the streets, bars, and cemeteries while the guides of Bulldog Tours amuse you with the tales and stories of the not so holy side of the Holy City.

Footlight Players Theatre

Take your search for nighttime fun and storytelling entertainment a step further and consider what the Footlight Theatre has to offer October 28, 29 30 and November 4, 5, 6 at 9pm. "The Weir" by Conor McPherson will be presented by the Footlight Players. "The Weir" takes place in a small tavern in rural Ireland where local men swap spook stories in an attempt to impress a young woman who recently moved into a nearby "haunted" house, but the tables get turned on them when she tells a tale of her own. Old-fashioned story telling guaranteed to send chills up your spine. Ticket price ranges $10-$15. Footlight Players Theatre is located at 20 Queen Street.-Vacation Rick Travel Charleston