Irving House

Irving House was built in 1865 in New Westminster by Captain John Irving. He died in 1872, but never really left. 

This is an excerpt from my book  At Home with History: The Secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Homes.

Irving House is built in the Gothic Revival style and overlooks the Fraser River on what’s now busy Royal Avenue in New Westminster. The whole house feels spooky. The wallpaper and the carpets in the two front parlours are original, the bed where William Irving died in 1872 is still there, and the furniture, the clothes, and the gadgets are all authentic to the period. The house hasn’t left the 1860s and it feels like the family has just stepped out and will return any moment.

Captain Irving

Irving was a riverboat captain, known as “The King of the River.” He had the family home built from boatloads of redwood shipped up from California. A newspaper called it “the handsomest, the best and most home-like house of which British Columbia can yet boast.”

The house stayed in the family until 1950, when it sold to the City for $5,000. And that’s when things started to get strange.

Betty Miller, the mother of a former curator felt the ghost of William Irving brush past her on the stairs saying “I must make haste.” It was his birthday. Another time, a boy of about eight on a school tour refused to come inside the house. A woman on a visit to the house entered the front parlour, said “I’m sorry, I can’t stay,” and fled.

The Walkers:

In the 1960s, Albert Walker was the curator and his wife Queenie led the tours. It was her job to prepare the house for visitors. One morning, her small granddaughter was visiting and told her that there was a man on the bed in John’s room. Queenie went into the room and saw that the bed’s antique coverlets were all twisted exactly as if an adult was asleep in the bed. She told her granddaughter not to play on the bed again. The next morning the same thing happened. This time she knew the little girl hadn’t been in the room.

The haunting:

More recently, a caretaker had a friend stay in the house while he went away for the weekend. One night he heard footsteps on the porch outside, grabbed a flashlight and went out to investigate. As he went by the library window he saw a small blue light floating in the middle of the room. It started to spin and it rushed toward the window. When it reached the window he could see a person’s face slam up against the glass. He was so freaked out that he fell backwards—a drop of about eight feet—and then kept on running.

But don’t take my word for it—take a tour of Irving House. And, if you’ve already done this and had your own paranormal experience, I’d love to hear about it!

• Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, or your favourite indie bookstore

For more ghostly stories check out these podcast episodes:

• Halloween 2022 podcast 
• Halloween 2021 podcast
• Halloween 2020 podcast

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