Ghosthunting North Carolina

by Kala Ambrose

  The Page home burned down in 1970, and the Town Hall now stands on the land where the house once stood. Statues of young children at play have been placed near the Town Hall where the home was located. Several local people who walk through downtown in the evening have reported seeing orbs floating around these statues after office hours when the town is quiet. The orbs reportedly fly around the statues and then move on, circling around the buildings in this area.

  In the national panic of 1873, which is also referred to as the Depression of 1873, most of the businesses in Cary closed. Frank Page moved his businesses during this time and sold his hotel to J.R. Walker. While there are many legacies of Page’s work in the town, the one that stands out most is the Page-Walker Hotel. The French Empire architectural style of the hotel is quite impressive, especially when considering that during the time it was built the town consisted of about 300 people. Beautifully restored, the Page-Walker Hotel is now an arts center hosting concerts, classes, and weddings. Many believe that it’s also haunted.

  Years ago, I encountered a ghost during my visit to the Page-Walker Hotel. This led me to research the history of the hotel to determine what type of activities had gone on in the hotel since its inception. The building had been in operation as a hotel, a boarding house, and in its last incarnation, as a private residence. In 1980, the building was put up for sale and remained on the market for years.

  At this point, the building began to deteriorate rapidly, with rain causing the majority of the damage to the interior. If it had not been for a concerned and tenacious group of citizens known as The Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel, who decided to save the hotel as a piece of history, there would be no ghost story to tell, for it’s highly likely that at the rate the hotel was declining, it would have been torn down.

  I still remember the first time I visited the hotel. My visit was to inquire about a course being offered at the center. I entered the building and walked up to the reception area, where an elderly lady was working at the desk. As I approached the desk to inquire about registration for the class, I saw that she was on the phone, and she held up a finger to me in the universal sign of asking me to be quiet and wait. I smiled to her and stood quietly to the side so that she could continue her conversation.

  A few minutes later, I was still waiting and she was still talking, and I grew bored and restless. I began to walk around the center to see what it looked like. I entered what is called the Main Gallery Room, and by the looks of the room, I presumed that this was where the course I was interested in would be held. I walked around the room, taking my time looking things over.

  So many times in ghosthunting, ghosts appear when you least expect them. As I was standing there in the room, a mist began to appear before me, gradually turning into the apparition of a man. He turned around, looking past me. He made a motion as if he was trying to close a door, but there was no door where we stood. What was most interesting about his appearance was that I could smell alcohol around him when he manifested, and it appeared to me that he had passed away while drunk. He seemed to be unaware that he was dead and he was stuck in a limbo where he still appeared to be under the influence of alcohol.

  At first I thought that he was a time-loop apparition, but my opinion changed as he looked at me and gave me a mischievous grin. Many people are scared when they see a ghost, but since I’ve had a lifetime of experience, it’s not that unsettling when they appear. He appeared to be a nice man, just stuck in the manner in which he died in a drunken state. As I was about to attempt to communicate with him, the lady who had been on the phone called out to me to say that she was off the phone. I turned my head to reply to her that I was on my way, and when I turned back to look at the ghost, he was gone. The center was preparing to close for the day, so I was unable to continue any further attempts at communication.

  The drunken state of this ghost was of course most interesting to me since history shows that Cary was a dry town for most of its existence. The town has only had 40-plus years of legal alcohol. The appearance of this man was from a time long before 1960, so one has to wonder how he obtained the alcohol and what led to his demise.

  During the late 1800s through the 1960s, religion and Prohibition continued to be a unifying theme of the town, and the churches were said to be strict in their beliefs. Local legends state that the Cary Baptist Church in 1914 expelled 24 members because they had been dancing and had not been attending services. If anyone was enjoying a drink of alcohol or seeing ghosts, they definitely weren’t feeling comfortable sharing this information with others for fear of retribution.

  Cary began its renaissance in the 1980s. No longer a dry town, the establishment of the Research Triangle Park (RTP) next to Cary created one of the most prominent high-tech research and development centers in the country. Compared often to Silicon Valley, RTP was created with the cooperation of state and local governments and major universities. This led to a population explosion as housing expanded in the area in a town once crowded with churches on almost every corner.

  Evidence of Page’s influence can be seen all around Cary, including the first public school in North Carolina, which he established. The school was originally called Cary Academy and operated as a private boarding school. It is currently being converted into the Cary Community Arts Center. Local lore states that when it was still operating as a school, custodians and several students reported seeing and hearing the ghosts of a girl and a boy in various parts of the building. Several students also reported the feeling of being watched when they were walking down an empty hallway alone.

  Cary also has a cemetery known as Hillcrest, which is the final resting place of many of the old Cary families, with familiar local names such as Page, Harrison, and Jones listed on the headstones. Hillcrest is a small cemetery owned by the town, and private residences border the cemetery on all sides. Local legends state that there is the ghost of a man, which many describe as “the farmer,” that appears on occasion in the cemetery. Dressed in period clothing from the early nineteenth century, the farmer appears by the largest tree in the cemetery, often standing there with his hand resting on the tree. He seems to be a caretaker of the cemetery and has been known to appear during funerals to pay his respects. When he appears, he’s quiet, stands silently by the tree, and just observes what is going on around him.

  Hillcrest Cemetery in Cary where the ghost of a farmer is seen by the largest tree on the grounds (Photo by Kala Ambrose)

  As I began to open up to people in Cary and share my experience at the Page-Walker Hotel, I was surprised at how many had ghost stories of their own in the area, including several having felt a presence at Page-Walker and near the Town Hall. It appeared that my willingness to speak first and share my experiences allowed others to feel comfortable in sharing their personal paranormal experiences, local legends, and folklore.

  Some of the old-timers whose families have lived in Cary for decades still don’t feel comfortable talking about their stories publicly due to their religious beliefs. They feel it’s disrespectful to discuss paranormal experiences.

  Over the years, Cary has evolved into a vibrant, active community that celebrates a variety of cultures. From Turkish festivals to the Hindu celebration of Diwali, the Spring Daze and Lazy Daze Festival, and Herbfest at the Page-Walker Center, the town has expanded and opened up to a variety of new experiences.

  The most recent census information reports that less than 30% of residents in Cary are North Carolina natives, and this has led to significant changes in the town on many levels. The town itself is still shifting and evolving as it works to revitalize the downtown with a new program called Street Scape.

  As this renovation begins, projects of this kind often stir up paranormal activity, so I expect the reports of ghost sightings to increase significantly in the downtown area. To date, no paranormal investigators have been allowed in any of these buildings to investigate, but it’s my hope that this will change soon.

  WEST CAROLIN
A

  THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS AND THE FOOTHILLS

  Asheville

  The Biltmore

  The Grove Park Inn

  The Haunted Gallows Trail

  Blowing Rock

  The Green Park Inn

  Charlotte

  Charlotte’s Fourth Ward and the Old Settler’s Cemetery

  Latta Plantation

  CHAPTER 20

  The Gentle Touch from the Pink Lady at the Grove Park Inn

  ASHEVILLE

  The Palm Court is located inside the Main Inn area of the Grove Park Inn. (Photo by Kala Ambrose)

  “An enchanted life has many moments when the heart is overwhelmed with beauty and the imagination is electrified by some haunting quality in the world or by a spirit or voice speaking from deep within a thing, a place, or a person.”

  —H. L. Mencken

  IN 1998, I FIRST VISITED the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. I had not previously heard of the inn until some of our neighbors invited us to tag along with them for a weekend there. We arrived at check-in to find that we all had rooms in a part of the hotel called the Main Inn.

  The Grove Park Inn is a stunning hotel built from granite quarried from the surrounding mountains. The granite has a mixture of quartz crystal inside. Quartz crystal can hold energy and amplify this energy at a greater level. An example of how this energy can be magnified is the vortex that Gary Spivey opened at the Star Hotel, connecting with the quartz crystal in the land, which energized both the land and the crystals. Quartz absorbs energy and reflects this energy back outward. When quartz is in the stone of a building like the Grove Park, it radiates with the energy of the people who work and visit the inn.

  Whenever I visit the Grove Park, I have an “instant experience” that is very positive in nature. Each time I enter the inn, I can feel the vibrational energy coming from the stone structure, and it resonates with the happy energy of the many guests who have visited over the decades.

  A partial list of famous people who have stayed at the Grove Park Inn includes F. Scott Fitzgerald, Will Rogers, George Gershwin, Harry Houdini, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. Presidents who have stayed at the inn include William Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and most recently, Barack Obama.

  The inn opened in 1913 and was the architectural vision of two men: E. W. Grove, who made his money selling an elixir called Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic, and Grove’s son-in-law Fred Seely. Grove found Asheville to be good for his health, and the area inspired him to build a restful and rejuvenating inn. It took more than 400 men 12 months to build the inn, during which time they dragged hundreds of tons of boulders up the mountain using mules, rope, and pulleys. The result is spectacular; the inn is warm and welcoming, and it blends into the natural surroundings. As my husband, son, and I drove up to the entrance of the hotel; I fell in love instantly with the Old World charm of the stone buildings and rocking chairs waiting out front to greet guests.

  We entered the Great Hall, which is more than 120 feet long, with ceilings soaring over 24 feet high. At one end of the Great Hall are doors leading out to the Sunset Terrace with spectacular views of Asheville and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Two enormous 14-feet-tall fireplaces in the Great Hall immediately drew our attention.

  At check-in we were given our keys and, to our surprise, we were directed to the elevator attendant standing by the fireplace. My husband and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing—elevator operator by the fireplace? We approached him and asked him to direct us to the elevator. Like something out of a Harry Potter movie, he led us to a door located in the fireplace. The elevators are hidden inside the chimneys of the stone fireplace! The operator rode with us, pushing the gate closed and working the elevator up to our floor.

  The elevator door opened to our floor, and we stepped off into the Main Inn, entering an area called the Palm Court Pavilion. It was a nice open space to lounge with chairs and tables set with reading lamps. The decor made me feel like I was stepping back into the Roaring Twenties.

  We were tired after traveling across the state of North Carolina. We settled in that evening to sleep, and I was awakened about an hour later by my son’s coughing. In his childhood he suffered from breathing problems, and he was experiencing some difficulty that evening. I gave him his medicine, and we sat up together for a while. He still wasn’t feeling better and the room felt a little stuffy, so I threw on my robe and took him to sit out in the Palm Court area. The air was lighter there than in our room, and I took a book to read to him to calm him down while we waited for the medicine to kick in and help his breathing. We sat side by side and were relaxing and talking, and I was stroking his head and speaking softly to him.

  It was close to midnight, and the inn was dead quiet. I felt a sudden chill in the air and pulled my robe tighter around me. My son also felt the chill, and he snuggled in closer to warm up. A few moments later, I felt someone around us, and as I looked up from speaking to my son, I saw the ghostly image of a woman standing next to us. Not wanting to alarm my son, I remained quiet, observing her to see what she would do next.

  At that time, my son looked up as well and saw the same woman. It wasn’t alarming to either of us, as her energy felt compassionate and sympathetic toward both of us. She stood next to my son and seemed concerned for him and reached out her hand toward him, as if she meant to stroke his hair along with me. She was with us for a few moments and then disappeared from our view.

  My son and I looked at each other with wide eyes and smiled. It wasn’t the first time that we had seen a ghost; we had experienced several paranormal events together in a haunted house where we had once lived in Florida. We headed back to our hotel room, where my son jumped up on the bed to wake his dad and tell him the story. My husband couldn’t believe he had missed it all. He was surprised that he had slept through everything, but that’s what the fresh mountain air does for you—relaxes you into a deep sleep.

  My son was still not feeling well, so we packed up and left early to get him back home. As we were checking out, I asked the people at the front desk if they had ever heard any reports of a ghost at the inn. They asked me why, and I explained what had happened with my son and me in the Palm Court. The front desk clerks crowded around to hear my story. They told me that I had seen the ghost of the Pink Lady, as she is known at the inn.

  View of the balcony where the Pink Lady is reported to have fallen to her death in the Palm Court below. (Photo by Kala Ambrose)

  The legend of the Pink Lady states that in the 1920s, she fell or was pushed from the hallway outside her room over the rail, where she fell to the floor of the Palm Court Pavilion below. The room that she stayed in was 545, and there have been reports from people who stayed in the room of experiencing cold spots in the room and sometimes seeing her apparition.

  Some paranormal investigators might think that the Pink Lady is a time-loop energy-imprint apparition, replaying her death over and over in the Palm Court, but that is not what we experienced. When she appeared to my son and me, she was engaged with us in the present moment, and she was aware that my son was not feeling well. She stood by wanting to comfort him in a motherly way, just as I was doing.

  The front desk employees told us that a few years prior to our visit, a doctor had stayed at the hotel and reported seeing her and that he had also reported that she seemed very welcoming to children.

  Since that visit in 1998, we have returned to visit the Grove Park Inn many times. We’ve celebrated Christmas at the Grove Park Inn, as well as Thanksgiving and Easter. We’ve also visited many times to enjoy the inn’s new spa, and I’ve been there for girlfriend getaways and romantic weekends with my husband and have wonderful memories with family and friends. However, we never stayed again in the Main Inn, preferring the wings and sometimes the Club Floor.

  But each time we visit we do hop on the elevator with our friends and spend
some time in the Palm Court in the late evenings, hoping that the Pink Lady will visit us again.

  I traveled again this past year to the Grove Park Inn to conduct further research for this book on the Pink Lady, as well as to research any other paranormal activity in the hotel. I brought a video camera along in case she decided to visit with me. I didn’t see her during my visit and have come to the conclusion that she is really drawn to young children. I’ve never slept in her room on the fifth floor, but have heard from employees at the inn that many guests report feeing her presence in the room and are often awakened by her in the evening.

  While investigating paranormal activity at the Grove Park Inn, I heard some other interesting stories from the employees about the hotel’s nightclub, called Elaine’s. It is said to be the most haunted spot in the hotel. We’ve been to Elaine’s Dueling Piano Bar during several of our visits, and it’s always a very entertaining way to spend the evening. I’ve never seen a ghost or any sign of paranormal activity while there, but the employees report that the activity usually happens when Elaine’s is quiet and they are cleaning up the day after a long party the evening before in the club. Music is often heard playing inside Elaine’s club when no one is inside. Several ghostly apparitions have been reported to appear on the dance floor by the employees. They appear to be attending a party from decades ago, as they are dressed in attire from the 1920s and the music heard also appears to be from that time. Photographs taken at Elaine’s often show a large variety of orbs in photos, as the ghostly guests appear to enjoy being around the alcohol, the music, and the lively atmosphere.