CITY 4
Fines likely here to stay
ENTERTAINMENT 11
Hit musical returns to the stage
SPORTS 28
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A bronze Pan Am debut
THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2017
LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS
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CITY LEGENDS
Grace’s ghost is at home in Fairacres Burnaby’s famous spirit from the past catches the attention of the author of a new book By Julie MacLellan
jmaclellan@burnabynow.com
She still walks there, they say; a silent figure in a flowing white dress passing silently from room to room. Sometimes she is seen as a misty figure, a soft-focused image; other times she appears more distinct, a character from some spectral Downton Abbey come to make her appearance in the silent hallways. She brings, in her wake, strong emotions: peace and tranquility most often, but other times sadness. Loneliness. She is Grace Ceperley. And, though she has not walked this earth for a century, there are many who swear she has never left her home at Fairacres, on the shore of Deer Lake. The mansion’s well-known haunted history has come to the forefront again, 100 years after Ceperley’s death, thanks to a newly published book: Haunted Museums and Galleries of Canada, by Andrew Hind. Taking its place alongside stories from across the country – from famed artist Emily Carr lingering at her former Victoria home, to spectral nuns at Le Musée de Saint-Boniface Museum in Winnipeg, to the restless spirit of a long-dead soldier at Haliburton House Museum in Windsor, N.S. – is a chapter featuring what has become one of the Lower Main-
FACES OF YESTERYEAR: An archival photograph of a picnic at Fairacres. The family is sitting and standing around a small wooden table, and their dog is lying
on a blanket in front. Henry and Grace Ceperley are seated second and third from the left, respectively, and the couple seated next to them appears to be Claude Hill and his wife Annie. The Ceperleys’ story is featured in a newly released book, Haunted Museums and Galleries of Canada.
PHOTO CITY OF BURNABY ARCHIVES, PHOTO NO. 241-019
land’s favourite haunted locations: the Burnaby Art Gallery. The gallery – dubbed A Gallery of Ghosts by Hinds – has occupied the former Ceperley Mansion since 1967, making it the longeststanding occupant in the building’s long, colourful and sometimes sordid history. As Hind’s book reveals, the
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mansion was the home of a wealthy and successful NewYork businessman, Henry Ceperley, who moved to Burnaby in 1909 in search of a peaceful life with his second wife, Grace. The couple had a home designed by British architect R.P.S. Twizell on the shore of Deer Lake – a lavish home, completed in
1911, containing such features as a billiard room with a beamed ceiling, a dining room with crystal chandeliers and a huge veranda with spectacular views, all set in magnificent grounds. Grace, it is said, loved the gardens and spent most of her time outside. She also adored children, doting
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on her stepchildren and grandchildren, and was known to support youth-related causes. When Grace died in 1917 at age 54, it was revealed that she was the sole owner of the mansion. She willed it to Henry, who sold it three years after her death and moved back to California. Continued on page 3
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