Located approximately 9.25 miles (15 km) east of the beautiful beaches of Montego Bay, Rose Hall Great House is one of the most famous and intriguing historical structures in Jamaica. Built in 1770 by George Ash for John Palmer, Custos of St Thomas, and his wife Rosa. According to local legend the Great House is to this day haunted by the malicious spirit of Annie Palmer, “The White Witch”, the tempestuous widow of John Palmer’s grandnephew John Rose Palmer, who eventually came to own the estate.

Surrounded by a 6600-acre sugar plantation which once had more than 2000 slaves, the Georgian Great House is built of cut-stone on the first two levels and stucco on the third and uppermost level. The main entrance to the second level of the building consists of a cut-stone symmetrical grand staircase, which leads to a verandah on the seaward side of the building. The building also features sash windows, keystone, quoins and a hip roof which help to make it a lovely backdrop for for a couple whose fantasy wedding is set back in time.

One of Jamaica’s most famous and frightening legends; that of “The White Witch of Rosehall” begins in the year 1820, when John Rose Palmer married Annie Mae Paterson, a beautiful 18-year-old spitfire measuring only 4′ 11″ tall. Born in 1802 in England of half-English, half-Irish stock, Annie Mae Paterson had moved to Haiti with her merchant parents when she was 10. When they died soon after from yellow fever, she was adopted by her Haitian nanny, who was rumored to be a voodoo priestess who educated her young charge in the arts of the occult.

When the nanny died, the young woman came to Jamaica, husband-hunting, and the rest is history. During her reign as mistress of the plantation, Annie did away with John Rose Palmer, two more husbands and countless lovers. Her cruelty, however, came to an end in 1831, when she was found strangled in her bedroom at the Great House. Legend has it that the murderer was Takoo, a voodoo priest seeking vengeance for a curse that Annie (in a fit of jealous rage) had placed on his beloved granddaughter, which had caused that granddaughter “to wither and die.” Her household servants, as well as the overseer of her plantation, Ashman, who recorded most of the grisly events in his diary, just wanted her buried as soon as possible in the deepest hole they could dig.

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Fearing her return from the dead, the household servants hastily burned most of her possessions, fearing that they were permeated with remnants of her spirit. To this day there is talk that lucky visitors to the mansion can catch a glimpse of her ghost wandering the halls. The Rose Hall Great House, was heavily damaged during the 1831 rebellion by the slaves, but after passing through the hands of three owners, Rose Hall Great House was acquired by American millionaire John Rollins, who spent vast sums of money to restore the property to its former beauty in the 1960s.

It now boasts silk wallpapers, European antiques, chandeliers, mahogany floors, paneling and wooden ceilings. A bar and restaurant are found downstairs at the Great House. The old sugar estate, on which the Great House sits, is also home to several modern buildings, namely the Half Moon Resort, Iberostar Rose Hall and Ritz Carlton resorts, as well as world-famous golf courses like White Witch and Cinnamon Hill. Here, visitors can experience the complete spectrum of island living – mountain villages, canefields, luxury villas, resort hotels and condominiums, miles of beautiful beaches and well-maintained golf courses.

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