The Stanley Hotel

The Stanley Hotel stands at 333 Wonder View Avenue in Estes Park, in Larimer County, Colorado ¹. The hotel and the town sit at the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park ^{1, 2}. The main building is a four-story frame structure on a cut stone foundation, with a full basement, an H-shaped plan and a hipped roof ¹. A hexagonal cupola topped with a dome sits at the center of the roof and divides the front facade into two equal halves ¹.

The Stanley Hotel, Manor House, Stanley Hall and Carriage House were listed in the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 1977, and a 1985 nomination expanded the district ¹. The expanded Stanley Hotel District covers 12 buildings on 35 nominated acres ¹. As of the 1985 nomination the property had had only seven owners and remained virtually intact ¹.

F.O. Stanley was born in 1849 in Kingston, Maine, and worked as an engineer and inventor with his twin brother, Francis ¹. The brothers sold their photographic dry plate invention to George Eastman ¹. They are best known for the Stanley Steamer, a steam-powered automobile ^{1, 3}. In 1903 doctors told Stanley he was dying of consumption and gave him three months to live, and he came west to Colorado and lived another 37 years ¹.

Construction began in 1907 on a site purchased from the McGregor Ranch, and the hotel opened on June 23, 1909 ^{1, 2, 3}. The Denver Gazette describes it as an elite 420-room retreat completed in 1909 by Stanley, co-founder of the Stanley Motor Carriage Co. ⁴. Stanley first intended to name it the Dunraven and settled on the Stanley only after hesitation ¹. The National Register nomination concludes that Stanley was likely his own architect, because his nearby residence shares the hotel's architectural features ¹.

The Manor House, a smaller companion building east of the hotel, was finished and opened in 1912 ¹. Its guest rooms were heated, unlike those in the main hotel building, and that allowed year-round operation ¹. The Gatekeeper's House was moved to the grounds in 1926 from the bottom of the hill in the town of Estes Park ¹. Guests are known to have included Theodore Roosevelt, Enrico Caruso, George Eastman, John Philip Sousa and Molly Brown, along with every governor of Colorado ¹. Stanley sold the property in 1929 for a price rumored to exceed half a million dollars, and he died in 1940 ^{1, 4}.

In the 1920s a gas leak caused an explosion in Room 217 ⁴. The blast destroyed the second floor above the main dining hall and nearly killed a chambermaid, Elizabeth Wilson ⁴. Wilson recovered, returned to work, and died at age 90 at her home in Estes Park ⁴.

In the fall of 1974 Stephen King and his wife stayed the night as the hotel's only paying guests, and they checked into Room 217, the Presidential Suite ⁴. Visit Estes Park says the stay inspired him to write The Shining ³. The novel was published in 1977 and adapted into a 1980 film directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson, with the hotel as the model for the fictional Overlook Hotel ⁴.

Kubrick's film was not shot at the Stanley ^{6, 3}. The 1997 Stephen King miniseries was filmed there, and the hotel's Shining Tour explains why ⁶. The 1994 comedy Dumb and Dumber was filmed at the hotel, with Jim Carrey on location ^{4, 3}.

The Denver Gazette reports that since Stanley's death in 1940 his apparition has reportedly appeared to guests checking in at the reception desk, and that the phantom of Flora Stanley, a pianist, is sometimes heard playing in the empty music room ⁴. The same account collects guest descriptions of shadowy figures, laughter, flickering lights and objects moving on their own in every room of the hotel compound ⁴.

After Elizabeth Wilson's death, the Gazette reports, the hotel began receiving accounts of a spectral chambermaid hovering and passing through closed doors in the rebuilt guest quarters ⁴. The paper describes unmarried couples complaining of an invisible force wedging them apart in bed, and single men finding their bags packed outside the door, behavior that tour guide Richard Estep attributed to "Mrs. Wilson" ⁴. It also reports numerous sightings of spectral children on the fourth floor, the hotel's former attic, and adds that records show no child ever died there ⁴.

Room 217 is the hotel's most requested room, according to the Gazette, which reports the claim that it drove Jim Carrey to leave in the middle of the night during filming ⁴. The paper says the campus has hosted many paranormal investigations, including teams from Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures and SyFy's Ghost Hunters ⁴.

Estep, a paranormal investigator and author who led weekend ghost tours at the hotel, told the Gazette he considers the Stanley one of the more active locations he has investigated ⁴. He also told the paper that old doors and frames, and wind moving through a century-old building, explain many supposed encounters ⁴. The Gazette reports that hoaxing is a fireable offense for hotel staff ⁴. The hotel's own ghost tour page says the night tour covers "the most active locations" and presents "documented hauntings" alongside folklore ⁵. Visit Estes Park states that the hotel has earned a paranormal reputation and offers a night tour of "active phenomena and spirit folklore" ³.

Visitors commonly describe footsteps and running in the fourth-floor corridors at night, knocking on doors with no one outside, and closet and bathroom doors in the guest rooms found open after being shut. Guests on the night tours report cold drafts in the underground tunnel and the concert hall, faint piano notes carrying from elsewhere in the building, and lights and faucets turning on without anyone near them. A number of accounts are less dramatic: guests who spend the night in the older rooms and report nothing out of the ordinary.

The Stanley operates as a working hotel with 220 accommodations across four properties: The Stanley, The Lodge, Aspire Hotel & Spa, and The Residences ². A Denver Gazette reporter who stayed overnight noted that the main house is not air-conditioned ⁴.

The 60-minute Historic Tour costs $30 standard, $20 for children ages 8 to 17, and $28 for hotel guests or AAA members ⁷. The Stanley Ghost Tour also runs 60 minutes, costs $35 per person and is limited to 20 people, with advance reservations recommended ⁵. The ghost tour is wheelchair-accessible, and its route varies by availability, time of day and season ⁵. Children under 8 are not permitted on the historic or ghost tours ^{7, 5}. The tour office is on the lower level of the hotel and can be reached at (970) 577-4110 or live@stanleyhotel.com ^{7, 5}.

Other offerings include a one-day-only Halloween Ghost Tour, The Shining Tour, The Vault Whiskey Tour, and a 40-minute Frozen Dead Guy Tour ⁶. The hotel says its whiskey collection is Colorado's largest, and Visit Estes Park calls the whiskey bar internationally known ^{6, 3}. Illusionist Aiden Sinclair joined the hotel as a regular headliner in early 2015 with the show "Illusions of the Passed: A Theatrical Seance" ⁴. F.O. Stanley's home, now the Stanley Home Museum at 415 W Wonderview Ave., is about one mile from the hotel and open for guided tours ^{8, 1}.