The historic Stanley Hotel, located in Estes Park, Colorado, is a well-known hotspot for paranormal activity, film locations, and horror festivals. The hotel’s long history of hauntings, paired with its infamous association with Stephen King, make it one of America’s most interesting tourist attractions.
Freelan Oscar (F. O.) Stanley (1849–1940) was a successful businessman and inventor who worked with his twin brother in the late nineteenth century. The pair is probably best known as the creators of the Stanley Steamer automobile. Early in the twentieth century, Freelan Stanley fell ill with tuberculosis. Upon the suggestion of a friend, Stanley and his wife, Flora, traveled to Estes Park, Colorado, to see if the change in altitude and environment would benefit his health. Passionately attached to the area, Stanley decided to buy land and build his own hotel. Taking only one year to construct, the Stanley Hotel opened in July 1909. It offered all of the modern amenities of the time and was intended to be purely a summer retreat due to the combination of heavy snowfall, high altitude, and winding roads. The hotel was an immediate success. It attracted famous guests at the time, a tradition that has continued to the present day. Some of the most eminent visitors have been Teddy Roosevelt, Molly Brown, Pope John Paul II, and the emperor of Japan.
Despite his original diagnosis, Stanley lived to be ninety-one. He frequented the hotel throughout his lifetime, enjoying and sharing his creation with the public. After the Stanleys’ deaths, there were reports of their ghosts haunting parts of the hotel. Freelan has been spotted most frequently in the billiard room and lobby, while Flora has been seen in the ballroom. Spectral images and eerie voices of children, as well as the ghost of Lord Dunraven (the land’s previous owner prior to F. O. Stanley), have also been reported in rooms, halls, and passageways.
The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, became legendary for reports of ghost sightings. Author Stephen King visited the hotel in 1974 and the experience inspired him to write The Shining. The hotel has been featured in a number of television shows that investigate paranormal activity. (Derrick Neill/Dreamstime.com)
Perhaps the most famous association with the Stanley Hotel is its connection to the fictional Overlook Hotel, the haunted and horrifying setting in Stephen King’s book The Shining. The novel begins by stating, “Some of the most beautiful resort hotels in the world are located in Colorado, but the hotel in these pages is based on none of them” (King 1977). However, Stephen King and his wife, Tabitha, did stay at the Stanley Hotel in late October 1974. King drew a link between his visit at the Stanley Hotel and his inspiration for one of his most famous novels in Mel Allen’s interview in Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King: “I got lost. It was just a warren of corridors and doorways, with everything shut tight and dark and the wind howling outside. The carpet was ominous…. There were these old fashioned fire extinguishers along the walls that were thick and serpentine. I thought, ‘There’s got to be a story in here somewhere’” (Allen 1988, 67). That experience later inspired The Shining, where the setting was the driving force behind the entire story.
Two film versions of The Shining were created: Stanley Kubrick’s in 1980 and ABC’s in 1997. The later TV miniseries version contained more influence from Stephen King, as he worked alongside ABC as the writer and third unit director. Moreover, in a macabre twist the television version has directly benefited the hotel: “Not only was the King remake of The Shining filmed at the Stanley Hotel, but the hotel now capitalizes on the connection” (Beahm 1998, 205). The Stanley Hotel began hosting the Stanley Film Festival in 2013, which highlighted new independent horror films. Guests of the hotel can reserve tickets to an annual The Shining Ball for Halloween. When Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining, was published, the Stanley Hotel offered themed guest packages complete with copies of both novels. However, not all tours and packages at the Stanley Hotel are King themed. A general Ghost Adventure Package is also available (where guests may specifically request haunted rooms), and frequent evening ghost tours are also offered to guide tourists through the hotel’s spooky historical locations.
The Bates Motel
Nearly twenty years before Stephen King drew upon the Stanley Hotel for inspiration in the development of his 1977 thriller The Shining, the iconic 1960 thriller film Psycho—directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh—used the seemingly banal setting of the Bates Motel to lull its viewers into a false sense of security before scaring the daylights out of them. Hitchcock changed the rules of the genre and subsequently raised the bar for horror movies. The film was considered almost unbearably frightening: movie-goers were warned that latecomers would not be allowed entry to the film, and audiences were implored not to give away the surprises. Although a recent remake of the film was not able to impart the same shock and terror, popular interest in the story continues: a recent TV series delved into the “backstory” of the eponymous Bates Motel.
C. Fee
The Stanley Hotel’s popularity shows no sign of waning. Two episodes of SyFy’s Ghost Hunters and one episode of the Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures have been filmed on the property, each purporting to have documented signs of paranormal activity. Appearances in popular culture, paired with the hotel’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places, help guarantee that the Stanley Hotel will probably survive for years to come.
Josianne Leah Campbell
See also Haunted Houses; LaLaurie House; McPike Mansion; Whaley House
Further Reading
Allen, Mel. 1988. “The Man Who Writes Nightmares.” In Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King, edited by Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Argie, Theresa, and Eric Olsen. 2014. America’s Most Haunted: The Secrets of Famous Paranormal Places. New York: Penguin Group.
Beahm, George. 1998. Stephen King from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of His Life and Work. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel.
Collings, Michael R. 1995. “The Shining.” In George Beahm, The Stephen King Companion: Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel.
Coulombe, Charles A. 2004. Haunted Places in America. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press.
King, Stephen. 1977. The Shining. New York: Doubleday.