In the past month I have had the opportunity to visit two hotels with ghostly stories.  The first was the Stanley Hotel in Colorado which of course was the inspiration and the location where Stephen King wrote “The Shining”.  The second is much lesser known but it comes with a ghost story from actual events.  This past weekend my Uncle was married and the reception was at the Seven Hills Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts.  I was planning on driving back home after the event, but there was an extra bed available at the hotel and there was open bar (I wasn’t driving anywhere).  This was room number one, which used to be the master bedroom of a woman named Emily Meredith Read Spencer.

As I was told Emily Spencer’s primary reason for purchasing the estate was to start a large family and have plenty of space to raise the children.  However she was unable to have children but instead raised a pet pig that she treated like a child.  They say the spirit of Emily Spencer still haunts the Hotel as she hopes to one day have a child of her own.  She is most often seen standing in the window of either room one or two, which are connected through a “secret” passageway.   Also, she can be found walking through the common areas downstairs in the hotel such as the lounge.  

Emily Spencer does not often cause trouble but the hotel’s event planner told me about a wedding reception that used her as an underlying theme.  The couple had heard the story and thought it would be fun to incorporate pigs in everything from their invitations to the meal that was served.  On top of it the bride was pregnant and apparently Emily was jealous.  Bizarre things happened that weekend, mirrors and pictures started falling off the walls and windows broke all for not apparent reason.  The planner did not give too many other details but she said nothing went smoothly for that wedding, everything that could have gone wrong did.  

So, I was about to sleep in the master bedroom of the lady who haunts the Seven Hills Inn.  I have always wanted to sleep in the haunted room of a hotel, and my little cousin wanted to sleep in her friend’s room rather than the haunted room by herself.  The previous night the Flower Girl of the wedding swears she saw Emily Spencer standing in the window, so I had high hopes of seeing something.  I went up to the room around 2:00 AM and I wanted to do some snooping around before I went to sleep.  I started with the search for the “secret” passage, my cousin mentioned finding it in the closet.  When I opened the closet I could see right into room two, I closed it immediately because I did not want to wake and scare the people sleeping in there.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a good look to see if it was just a shared closet or really a secret passageway.  In the hopes to remain awake a bit longer I turned on the television.  I fell asleep before seeing anything paranormal, but I did wake up a couple hours later to turn off the TV.

I went through the entire night without seeing anything out of the normal, but at least I got to cross off one of those things from my list of things I’ve always wanted to do.  I highly recommend the experience to anyone interested in ghosts, also the staff did a knock up job with the reception.  It made for a fun a memorable weekend.