The Stanley Hotel is located in Estes Park, Colorado, and has been around and creeping people out since 1909. The 138-room hotel, which was constructed by Freelan O. Stanley, is tucked away in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and has a killer view of Rocky Mountain National Park.The hotel wasn’t originally built to house overnight guests, though. It was actually built as a tuberculosis respite for Stanley after he was told the only cure for his ailment was to fill his lungs with fresh Colorado air. It worked, Stanley was cured, and then he took up residence in Estes Park – FOR ALL OF ETERNITY. Or so it’s rumored, anyway.
Over the years, the hotel has attracted many a celebrity, including Theodore Roosevelt and ol’ Stephen King, probably because it’s super ass haunted. Stanley’s ghost can be seen roaming the lobby or the billiards room. The piano in the ballroom is played by Stanley’s wife Flora’s ghostly hands – no, for real – as she tries to entertain her guests. Ghost children can be heard running and laughing, which is hella creepy, and cupboard doors open and shut all willy-nilly. Hard pass.
King helped bring the Stanley Hotel to infamy after he and his wife, Tabitha, booked a room at the Stanley on a whim as they were passing through Estes. They were the only guests at the hotel – it was the very tail end of tourist season – and King was apparently so creeped out by his stay that his stay inspired his novel, “The Shining.” The creepiness kicked off in the hotel’s dining room, where King and Tabitha ate alone, and really ramped up overnight.
“Except for our table, all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things,” King said of the visit. “I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of “The Shining” firmly set in my mind.”
The hotel has become a hotspot for ghost hunters, and you can book a room, but you might have to wait a few years if you want to stay around Halloween. So just go now instead. The ghosts are there year-round.
Angelica Leicht
