History & local legend
Chez Odette was a restaurant and cabaret in an old stone tavern beside the Delaware Canal in New Hope. Its Paris-born proprietor, Odette Myrtil, entertained guests with singing and violin performances. The woman in the restaurant’s ghost stories was said to belong to an earlier chapter of the building’s life, when it was known as the River House.
Staff accounts collected before the restaurant closed described glimpses of an unfamiliar woman, a strong perfume with no apparent wearer and a voice calling employees by name. The figure was not identified as Odette herself; the stories placed her in the tavern’s earlier history.
In 2018, the stone building was moved away from its original position beside Lock 8. The haunting accounts concern the restaurant at that waterfront location, before the relocation and the later hotel development.
Sources
- Delaware County paranormal investigators, staff reports of a woman, perfume and voices at the old restaurant, archived October 2006
- New Hope Free Press, historical society tribute and Odette Myrtil’s cabaret performances
- Philadelphia Inquirer, eyewitness reporting on the 2018 move
- National Park Service, Delaware Canal landmark nomination, Chez Odette beside Lock 8
- OpenStreetMap, relocated historic inn on South Main Street
