Reply #44: La Maison du Gourmet ((the Coulter mansion) in Roanoke, VA

[Surf Cowboy]

When it used to be a 5-star French restauant, I was a fine-dining waiter there. After working for about a month, I was busing one of the dining rooms late one night and setting the tables.

I walked into the room, holding a large tray full of set-ups (goblets, silverware, etc) for the tables, when I saw an apparition seated at the front window of the room, looking out onto the graveyard on the property. It was a woman. She was dressed in a long, long dark blue dress which had small polka dots throughout. She had tall, lace up boots which extended almost to her knees. She sat with her legs crossed and her hands folded across them.

She looked at me and smiled.

I shit my pants (*not really, but pretty close), dropped the tray, and ran like hell out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs, and was almost out the front door when the old maitre'd stopped me by grabbing my shoulders.

The first words out of his mouth were, "It's OK. We've all seen her. She won't hurt you."

I threw up.

He said, "at least you didn't have to deal with Old Man Coulter." Old Man Coulter was the name for the downstairs ghost that would come out at night and drink scotch and smoke cigars.

One Sunday morning, three of us were the first to arrive (to set up brunch). We smelled smoke coming from downstairs, so we went to check it out. When we got to the bar (awesome set up--cherry bar across from stone fireplace, everything cherry wood, dark green, royal blue, and maroon) we saw (1) 1/2 tumber of scotch on the rocks, (2) partially smoked cigar (still smoking), and (3) a fire in the fireplace.

There is no way anyone could have pulled off such a hoax. We checked it out all morning (our first experience with Old Man Coulter).

Geez that place is haunted.