Haunted Windermere House, Muskoka: The Founder Who Still Knocks

Windermere House is one of Muskoka’s classic grand resorts, a white Victorian hotel with long verandahs on the shore of Lake Rosseau, about two and a half hours north of Toronto. It has taken in guests since 1870, when a settler from Scotland’s Shetland Islands began offering room and board on his homestead, and locals have long called it the Lady of the Lake.

It is also known for a gentle, very old-fashioned haunting. Guests describe knocks at their doors in the night, footsteps and whispers, and belongings quietly moved, all blamed on the founder, Thomas Aitken. A small girl has been reported standing beside beds before vanishing. The twist is that the building you sleep in today is a faithful rebuild after a fire in 1996, so these are stories about a place and a family rather than old walls.

The ghosts of Windermere House

Thomas Aitken, the founder

Thomas Aitken came to Muskoka from the Shetland Islands in Scotland in the 1860s and settled on the shore of Lake Rosseau. He and his wife Elizabeth began taking in hunters and anglers, and their homestead grew into one of the region’s best-known resorts as steamships and the railway brought summer visitors north. He ran it until his death in 1919.

Legend says Aitken never quite left. Guests describe phantom footsteps in the halls, whispers, and knocking on their doors late at night with nobody outside. Others say small things in their rooms move to where they apparently ought to be, as if someone with firm ideas about running a hotel is still doing his rounds. The resort’s own website says Aitken’s presence and standards are still felt today, which is a neat way to put it.

The girl at the bedside

The second story is quieter. Guests have reported waking in the night to see a little girl standing beside their bed, looking at them, who then fades away. Some versions add a child laughing and bouncing a ball in the halls at night. Nobody has given her a name, and writers who have looked into the resort’s past have found no record of a death on the property to explain her.

Local author Andrew Hind collected Windermere stories in his book Muskoka’s Most Haunted, including a staff member’s account of a lamp switching itself on in the basement.

Stories in a rebuilt house

On February 27, 1996, fire swept through Windermere House while it was being used as a set for the Hollywood film The Long Kiss Goodnight. A local fire-history exhibit puts it down to a high-intensity film light. Only the stone veranda survived. The owners rebuilt the hotel to match its historic appearance, reusing much of the original stonework, and it reopened in the summer of 1997.

That raises a fair question about ghosts in a building that is less than thirty years old. Believers argue that a haunting belongs to a place and its people rather than to the timber. Skeptics will note that a building rebuilt in the image of the old one invites the old stories to move back in. Either way, the Aitken legend has continued since the rebuild.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The main house corridors: Where the footsteps and knocks are reported. Rooms in the main building put you closest to the stories.
• Lakeview rooms and suites: The best views of Lake Rosseau, and the classic way to stay in the Lady of the Lake. No specific story is attached to any one room.
• The verandah: The long front verandah looking down to the water is the best place to sit after dark and take in the old resort atmosphere.
• Windermere Cottage: A private four-bedroom cottage on the grounds, good for groups. No ghost stories here; it is the option for anyone who wants the setting without the knocks.

History of Windermere House

Thomas Aitken, a settler from the Shetland Islands, took up land on Lake Rosseau in the 1860s. He and his wife Elizabeth began offering room and board to visitors, and the resort dates its first guests to 1870. As steamships began to ply the Muskoka Lakes and the railway reached the region, the boarding house grew: a new front section with a flag tower went up in 1883, a three-story wing by 1887, and by the 1890s the hotel could hold 220 guests at $1.50 a night.

Windermere House became one of the grand hotels of Muskoka’s golden age, when Toronto families and American visitors came north by train and steamer for whole summers on the lakes. Aitken added a second tower and electric lighting in the early 1900s. After his death in 1919 his son Leslie and daughter Gertrude ran it, and part of the original 200 acres went to the new Windermere Golf and Country Club. A stone veranda replaced the wooden one in the 1930s, and Aitken’s granddaughter Mary-Elizabeth later modernized it further. Elizabeth Aitken helped run the hotel until her death in 1936.

On February 27, 1996, the hotel was being used as a film location for The Long Kiss Goodnight when fire broke out and destroyed almost all of the original building, leaving only the stone veranda. The owners chose to rebuild it to the original design, reusing much of the old stonework, and it reopened in summer 1997, with major renovations in 2007 and 2008.

On April 15, 2023, the resort was bought by a group of investors from the senior leadership of Skyline Group of Companies, with B Hospitality managing it. They reopened it that spring and set out to keep it open year-round instead of just in summer. Today it has 58 suites plus a four-bedroom cottage, a restaurant, pub, spa, pool and lakeside sauna, with golf next door at the Windermere Golf and Country Club.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book a room in the main house rather than the cottage if you want to be where the knocks and footsteps are reported.
• Summer weekends in Muskoka book out early. Late fall and early spring are quieter, cheaper and far better for an atmospheric stay.
• The resort sometimes closes for a few weeks for property improvements, usually in late fall. Check dates before you plan.
• Have dinner in the restaurant overlooking the lake, then sit out on the verandah once the day visitors have gone.
• Pair your stay with a night at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto on the way north or back.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Fairmont Royal York, Toronto: Toronto’s 1929 landmark and its eighth-floor ghost
• Glenerin Inn, Mississauga: a 1920s country estate with a ghost by the great hall fire
• The Walper Hotel, Kitchener: an 1893 hotel with a long list of ghost stories
• Haunted hotels in Canada
• Haunted hotels in Ontario

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Windermere House (official site)
• Windermere House: History
• Stay Magazine: New owners of Windermere House announce grand opening (2023)
• Community Stories: Up in Flames, the history of fire in Muskoka
• Mysteries of Canada: 10 haunted hotels in Ontario
• J.A. Hernandez: Ghosts of Windermere House

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