Countess Bubna’s Halloween Surprise
Everyone loves a ghost story, and I stumbled across one this year in a decidedly unspooky – in fact, charming – place: Kelowna’s boutique Hotel Eldorado.
Entrance to the Hotel Eldorado. Photo by José Antonio Lopez.
You see, the original Hotel Eldorado was an Inn built in the 1920s by Countess Bubna Litite of Austria. She wanted an elegant place to entertain her European friends. Recently, Brad Sieben the General Manager of the Hotel Eldorado, told me that this original Inn catered to mixed-company: European nobility on the one hand, and a Ranch Hand Locale on the other. Over the years, the Inn fell into disrepair, and eventually a developer bought the land it was on with the intent to redevelop it. That’s when current owner Jim Nixon and his family stepped in.
Lakeside View of the Hotel Eldorado.
Being a history buff and antique collector, Jim bought the inn with the intent to bring it back to its original glory. He had the hotel floated from its original location, on a barge, up Okanagan Lake by about a mile. New location secured, he readied it for its new home. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be, and an arsonist burned it down. Some might think this is the catalyst – the point at which the Countess’s spirit became disturbed.
Bullish on his intent to have the Hotel Eldorado back in its original glory, Jim rebuilt the hotel using blue prints and photographs, recreating it in a structurally identical building. The lobby even looks the same!
Today, the hotel is a family-run boutique hotel with loads of charm, a truly fantastic restaurant, and all sorts of special touches. It’s a popular spot in the summer with its boardwalk restaurant next to the Hotel Eldorado Marina. In the winter months, the El (as it’s locally known) offers romance packages starting at just $99/night.
Sometimes, though, if the moon is just right, and the lake shimmers clandestinely beneath the El’s windows, you may see a strange shaddow in the halls, or an unexplainable clanging of pots in the kitchen. Never you mind: it’s just the Countess Bubna, checking up on the old digs…
