Glance up at the sloping green roof of the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, and you might just catch a flash of scarlet at one of the windows. Wave hello to the Lady in Red, a gracious spirit said to haunt the halls of this grand dame of a hotel.
The Lady is believed to be the crimson-clad shade of one Jennie Pearl Cox who, along with her husband and daughter, was a regular at the hotel’s luxe shindigs back in the day. Then, on a sultry summer day in 1944, she was killed in a tragic car accident right outside the hotel. Since then there have been numerous sightings of her, mainly at The Roof or on the 14th floor.
If it is indeed Cox, she is one of a whole sub-set of “Red Lady” spirits who typically haunt historic hotels, theatres and other public places. Unlike the White Lady, who is usually a bride or innocent maiden, a Red Lady is likely to be a friendlier, more sophisticated sort of spirit, a scandalous socialite, perhaps, or a jilted lover.
Of course, there are those of us who prefer to sip, rather than encounter, spirits, so the hotel’s bartenders have prepared the perfect cocktail for the spookiest time of the year.
