Dressed in a short-sleeved button-up covered in a familiar burnt-orange, black and brown hexagonal pattern, the unassuming man whispers to his wife, who is wearing a faded black T-shirt with the word “Redrum” scrawled across it in blood red: “This is where it all happened.”
The excitement in his voice is childlike, as if he’s stepped into a fantastical place filled with phantom employees and monstrous topiary. But his first impression of the grounds that inspired Stephen King’s 1977 novel The Shining is not uncommon.
The Stanley Hotel inspired Stephen King to write one of his most iconic books after a chilling 1974 visit.
Courtesy Justin Criado
While it doesn’t appear in the Kubrick film at all — the exterior shots of the hotel show the Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood, Oregon, while the interior scenes feature sets built in England — the Stanley is littered with homages to The Shining, from the famous hexagon carpet hidden in certain places around the resort’s fourteen buildings to menu items named after characters at Brunch & Company, the restaurant inside the Stanley’s Lodge property.
Although less popular than Kubrick’s adaptation, which King loathed for its radical diversion from his source material, the 1997 three-episode ABC mini-series The Shining was filmed entirely at the Stanley. The dollhouse featured in the show, which was written by King himself, still takes up residence in the basement, near the check-in desk for the hotel's daily ghost and Shining tours.
The main attraction of the Shining tour is Room 217 (or Room 237, as it's referenced in Kubrick’s version). Anyone familiar with The Shining at all already knows that is the exact room where King and his wife, Tabitha, stayed during a 1974 visit.
“In late September of 1974, Tabby and I spent a night at a grand old hotel in Estes Park, the Stanley. We were the only guests as it turned out; the following day they were going to close the place down for the winter,” King wrote of his inspiration for the book on his personal website.
The desolation of being cooped up in an empty hotel felt oppressive to King, and he used that sense of dread as the catalyst to ultimately drive his new protagonist, Jack Torrance, murderously mad. “Wandering through its corridors, I thought that it seemed the perfect — maybe the archetypical — setting for a ghost story,” he wrote.
He also had a nightmarish vision involving his own young toddler during his brief stay at the Stanley.
“That night 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,” King shares. “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 the chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind.” (Literary nerds will remember that the serpentine hose, a hallucinatory antagonist of the five-year-old Danny, did find its way into the final manuscript.)
Now, fifty years after that fateful night, the Stanley will celebrate The Shining and its creator during the annual Shining Ball on Saturday, October 26. DJ Queen C and Triple Kick's live percussion will provide the beats. And while the ball is always a good excuse to get dressed up, this year’s rendition is an extra-special occasion, as the hotel invites you to do your best to bring the pantheon of King’s most wicked works to life in a costume contest.
But don’t be surprised if some unexpected — or at least undead — guests join in on the fun. See, there might have been more hauntings happening in the second-floor room during King’s 1974 visit than what transpired in his macabre mind.
Room 217, now known as the Stephen King Suite, is supposedly the eternal residence and responsibility of chambermaid Elizabeth Wilson, who survived a catastrophic gas explosion in the west-wing room in 1911. Though her maiden name is up for debate, her death is a well-known fact, and, as with any good ghost story, there are several versions of Wilson’s demise. One tale ends with her taking her own life in Room 217 — then called the presidential suite, with its lavish balcony overlooking the front corridor.
Another less-dramatic account explains that Wilson peacefully died in her sleep inside her Estes Park cabin after a long day of work. But she still showed up to take care of her rooms the day after she died, her death unbeknownst to co-workers who greeted and interacted with her as if nothing had happened. It was only later, once her ghost shift ended, that her body was discovered.
Since then, Wilson is said to have continued to take care of Room 217. Some say that if she likes you, she’ll neatly put away all of your belongings. On the other hand, if Wilson isn’t a fan of a guest, she’s known to pack up their luggage and place it by the door, with the shoes facing the hallway.
There’s also an unlikely link between The Shining and Dumb and Dumber. Actor Jim Carrey, who stayed in Room 217 while filming the 1994 comedy at the Stanley, allegedly experienced Wilson’s presence, but in thirty years has never talked about what actually transpired. Dumb and Dumber memorabilia is also on display in the hotel basement, not far from the dollhouse.
Of course, there are hundreds of other ghastly stories told within the walls of the 115-year-old hotel, which was built by its original owner, F.O. Stanley. The current workers are typically more than happy to share their own firsthand accounts, too. Just don’t expect Lloyd, the polite, rotting barkeep brought to life in King’s tome, to serve up martinis on the house.
But you can hope: The middle-aged man and his wife are now waiting in a short line outside the hotel’s Cascades Restaurant & Lounge. He’s hoping to get a peek inside without a reservation, even if it’s just for a brief picture opportunity. He knows the bar, with its glinting backdrop of bottles sporting every kind of liquor, isn’t the one from the movie, but he still wants to reenact the famous scene of Jack Torrance ordering a bottle of bourbon, a glass and some ice.
“That’s why I watched it two times before coming. I want to go up and ask, ‘Say, Lloyd, it seems I’m temporarily light. How’s my credit in this joint anyway?’” he explains to his wife, rehashing Nicholson’s iconic line.
The hostess allows him to walk inside and indulge his fandom. He’s able to squeeze into a space between two men wearing football jerseys. As he bellies up to the far end of the bar, he turns back to make sure his wife is taking a picture. He poses briefly, a big grin breaking out across his face, before doing his best Jack Torrance impression. The bartender, a young lady in a black dress shirt, plays along — no doubt she’s seen this shtick before — and serves him a Bulleit bourbon on the rocks. Though brief, it’s just one example of how The Shining comes to life every day inside the Stanley.
The Shining Ball, 8 p.m. Saturday, October 26, Stanley Hotel, 333 Wonderview Avenue, Estes Park. Tickets are $109.
