An ethereal presence permeates the 115-year-old Stanley Hotel. For more than a century, the spirited landmark has stood guard over the picturesque mountain town of Estes Park, only 38 miles north of Boulder, like a weather-worn sentry who refuses to abandon post.
The feeling creeps into the corners of my mind as soon as I arrive in town to see the keystone building’s clock tower, bathed in a blood-red evening glow, rising into view against the darkened sierra backdrop.
Nearing 10 p.m., my partner and I take in the unexpectedly lively ambience of our new surroundings, especially the miniature hedge maze that greets visitors near the foot of the front steps, from our perch outside the wine bar. The place is crawling with restless spirits.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” one excited guest says to his partner.
“You’ve been waiting for this,” she returns.
As the middle-aged couple disappears through the front doors, their conversation joining the cacophony of static, I can’t help but wonder what other voices will make themselves heard tonight.
‘Forever and ever and ever’
The Stanley, as most already know, is notoriously haunted, but everyone this night is most definitely alive. The 14-building hotel grounds became a beacon for paranormal enthusiasts after Stephen King experienced the spectral lore of Room 217, where he and his wife Tabitha spent one snowed-in night while the couple was living in Boulder in September 1974.
With The Stanley preparing to shutter for the winter the following day, King suffered a restless night filled with nightmarish visions — the most frightening featuring his 3-year-old toddler running terrified through the halls while being chased by a possessed firehose.
The experience influenced his 1977 psychological-horror masterpiece, The Shining, which centers around the fictional Overlook Hotel and protagonist Jack Torrance’s slow descent into murderous madness after moving his family into the lodge as its offseason caretaker. Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall cemented the work’s place in pop culture, though King famously hated the digression from his novel.
During his brief stint in Boulder, an emerging young author named Stephen King pitched himself as the new film critic for The Daily Camera. Read his 1974 letter in full, via Carnegie Library.
Fifty years after his infamous stay, The Stanley has become the beating heart of everything related to the tome. The 1997 ABC mini-series written by King was filmed there. (Fun fact: The Stanley doesn’t appear in the movie at all.) There are odes big and small scattered throughout the buildings, from the film’s familiar carpet pattern hidden in unexpected places to “REDRUM” coffee mugs for sale in the lobby gift store.
A concierge next to the front desk, dressed as the undead secretary from 1988’s Beetlejuice, asks if we need help booking a tour or “experience.”
“We’re thinking a ghost tour,” I say. “Will you be here tomorrow?”
“I’m always here,” she quips. “Forever and ever and ever.”
‘Get out!’
We quickly find our modest room for the weekend, No. 322. A neatly made king-size bed facing a flatscreen TV fills most of the room. An undated black-and-white photo near the closet captures three women dressed in white, waltzing in the fields that once lead up to the Stanley steps. A three-legged black dog follows the ghostly figures.
The AC unit’s purr mimics the pulse of a busy heart-rate monitor, but sleep comes easy. The new day brings more exciting adventures, mainly an evening ghost tour. Everyone we run into is eager to share stories. Whether Stanley employees are just entertaining amateur ghost hunters or not, we’re told there are 200 confirmed, or at least documented, phantoms residing at the hotel. That includes an ornery groundskeeper named Paul, who continues to diligently keep riff raff out of the concert hall with his blunt catchphrase: “Get out!”
There’s also a young wraith named Lucy in the theater’s basement, with whom our quirky tour guide “communicates” using a Dum-Dum lollipop (her favorite), though we’re skeptical of the spectacle.
Room 217, now called the Stephen King Suite, remains the supernatural epicenter, thanks to the undying diligence of chambermaid Elizabeth Wilson, who survived a gas explosion there in 1911.
But it’s what she’s done after her death in the 1950s that is noteworthy. People say she still cares for the room, mainly by putting guests’ belongings into drawers if she’s fond of them. If she isn’t, Elizabeth won’t hesitate to let dumbfounded travelers know by neatly packing their bags. Her signature: placing their shoes near the door.
One explanation for why The Stanley is home to so many post-mortem patrons, according to our tour guide, is that the hotel is laid on a foundation of limestone and quartz — precious stones known to attract spirits.
F.O. Stanley, the hotel’s founder and architect, may have realized that all along.
“Nature has endowed Estes Park in a wonderful manner,” a quote accompanying his statue in the middle of the maze reads. “The grandeur of its scenery, its deep blue skies, its clear, cool and invigorating air, its mountain streams of sparkling soft water, its sunny days and delightfully cool nights, are things the summer visitor never forgets, and having enjoyed once, desires to enjoy again.”