Believe it or not, this hotel was the inspiration for the movie "The Shining" by none other than Stephen King. He actually stayed here at one time.
Stanley Hotel (Estes Park, Colorado)
Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Famous as the inspirational setting for Stephen King’s 1977 horror novel “The Shining,” the hotel opened to guests in 1909 and is named for its original owner, F.O. Stanley, co-founder of a company that made steam-engine cars known as Stanley Steamers. A Maine native, Stanley and his twin brother produced their first vehicles in the late 1890s. In 1903, F.O., who was suffering from tuberculosis, arrived in Estes Park, hoping the mountain air would provide a cure. He later purchased land from an Anglo-Irish nobleman, on which he began building the hotel in 1907. In late October 1974, Stephen King and his wife stayed at the Stanley and were the only guests there; the experience served as fodder for his best-selling book about an off-season caretaker at an old hotel in the Colorado Rockies. Today, the ghosts of F.O. Stanley and his wife, Flora, are said to roam the hotel. Additionally, legend holds that in 1911 a maid carrying a lit candle during a storm entered what is now room 217, which had an undetected gas leak. The resulting explosion sent the maid crashing into the room below; she broke both her ankles but went on to work at the hotel until her death decades later. Since then, her ghost reportedly has haunted the room, sometimes even performing housekeeping tasks. Over the years, there also have been reports of lights turning on and off on their own, objects moving and the unexplained sounds of children running in the halls.
Beautiful place, but I don't want to stay there in the off season...know what I mean?
Coffee out om the patio this morning, if that's OK with you.
