Overview
Often called the most haunted place in Vermont, the Green Mountain Inn has a history and a ghost that just won’t give up the dance. might not look haunted from the outside but leaves plenty of guests wondering what they just experienced during a stay.
History of the Haunted Green Mountain Inn
Built in 1883, the Green Mountain Inn once boasted a large dance hall that attracted visitors from all across the region and was a popular place for presidents and famous actors to visit while in Stowe. Owners renovated the old hotel in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which is right around the time that guests and staff began experiencing some peculiar things at the hotel.
The most common story told surrounds a man by the odd name of Boots Berry. Local legend claims that he earned the nickname Boots because he learned how to tap dance from a fellow prisoner while in jail and would delight locals by dancing through the streets. Supposedly born in one of the rooms at the inn, Berry later became the man in charge of the inn’s horses. When the horses escaped the property and raced through the streets, Berry was the one who chased after them and brought them back. People in town were so grateful for what he did that men and women alike lined up in the hopes of buying him a drink. Berry grew so famous that he eventually stopped working and lived solely on what his fans gave him.
Boots Berry also developed something of a drinking problem, which led to the owners firing him. Though not distraught, Berry did leave town and only came back several years later. Not long after moving back, he heard a young girl screaming and discovered her about to fall off the roof of the hotel. Berry raced upstairs and managed to pull her back to safety, only to die himself when he slipped off the roof.
Many people believe that Boots is the Inn’s resident ghost because of the noises they hear, which sounds just like someone tap dancing across the roof. Guests staying on the top floor of the Green Mountain Inn occasionally hear the sounds of someone dancing and footsteps jumping back and forth across the roof.
Boots Berry and his haunting of the Green Mountain Inn is unique because he doesn’t make appearances like other ghosts do. Rather than jumping out from behind closed doors and knocking on walls, he just likes to cut a rug on the roof of the old inn. Even decades after his death, he still loves to show off his dancing skills.
Never encountered the ghost myself, but I’ve mostly stayed farther from the main building where Boots is believed to have died and now haunts. I don’t know what room it is, but it is know what room he specifically haunts, and I’ve known several people to hear the tapping. He is also know to occasionally rearrange things in the room. A woman was staying there for her daughters wedding, heard the tapping, and walk up to find all her things put in a circle. He’s certainly a friendly ghost. A great inn in general, right on main street in Stowe.