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The Stanley Hotel

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The Stanley Hotel
The Stanley Hotel is located in Colorado
The Stanley Hotel
Location333 Wonder View Avenue, Estes Park, Colorado
ArchitectFreelan Oscar Stanley
Architectural styleColonial Georgian
NRHP reference No.85001256[1]
Added to NRHPJune 20, 1985
Front of Stanley Hotel, February 2011

The Stanley Hotel is a 140-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Located within sight of the Rocky Mountain National Park, the Stanley offers panoramic views of the Rockies. It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley of Stanley Steamer fame and opened on July 4, 1909, catering to the American upper class at the turn of the century.[2] The hotel and its surrounding lands are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[1]

The Stanley Hotel also hosted the horror novelist Stephen King, serving as inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in his 1977 bestseller The Shining. Parts of the 1996 TV mini-series version of Stephen King's novel were filmed there. However, Stanley Kubrick's 1980 cinematic adaptation was filmed on sets built at Elstree Studios in England (which drew inspiration from the 1927 Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park) with the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, supplying exterior shots.

The Stanley Hotel shows the uncut R-rated version of Kubrick's feature film on a continuous loop on Channel 42 on guest room televisions.

History

Hotel lobby
Music Room windows showing snowy mountains, February 2011
Vintage Stanley Steamer in hotel lobby
Antique Chickering and Sons piano

Freelan Oscar Stanley and his twin brother were born in Kingfield, Maine in 1849. From 1885 to 1904, they were co-owners of the Stanley Dry Plate Company and, from before 1900 to 1917, operated the Stanley Motor Carriage Company. From 1890, he and his brother were residents of the upper-class Hunnewell Hill neighborhood in Newton, Massachusetts where they founded the Hunnewell Social Club.

In 1903, Stanley and his wife Flora came to Estes Park for his health.[3] Stanley suffered from tuberculosis and came West at his doctor's suggestion. Over the course of one summer, Stanley's health improved dramatically.[2] Impressed by the beauty of the valley and grateful for his recovery, he decided to return to Colorado every summer. In 1905, he completed an elegant colonial-revival mansion like his home in New England and, in 1907, began construction on the Hotel Stanley, a one-hundred room grand-hotel that catered to the class of wealthy urbanites who composed the Stanley's social circle in Newton.[3]

Stanley built on land that he had purchased from The 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, an Anglo-Irish nobleman and politician. Lord Dunraven came to the area in 1872 while on a hunting trip. He built a hunting lodge, cabin, and hotel for his guests and illegally homesteaded up to 15,000 acres (61 km2) in an unsuccessful attempt to create a private hunting preserve. unpopular with the local ranchers and farmers, Dunraven finally left the area in 1884.[2][3]

The Stanley Hotel was completed in 1909 and featured a hydraulic elevator, electricity, running water, telephones and a fleet of Stanley Mountain Wagons to bring guests to the hotel from the nearest train depot in Lyons, Colorado; all of this at a time when Estes Park was little more than a locale for hunters and naturalists. The presence of the hotel and Stanley's own involvement greatly contributed to the growth of Estes Park (incorporated in 1917) and the creation of the Rocky Mountain National Park (established in 1915).

Hauntings

As early as the 1970s, the Stanley Hotel had gained a reputation for being a locale with a high incidence of paranormal activity. Several ghost stories surround the state rooms on the hotel's main floor as well as many of the guest rooms. The fourth floor in particular is supposed to be especially active. In the last two decades, various paranormal investigation groups and skeptics alike have visited the Stanley property to uncover the basis for these stories.

In 2006, the Syfy television show Ghost Hunters, led by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, filmed an episode at the Stanley hotel.[4][5] The episode aired on May 31, 2006.

The Stanley Hotel was also the lockdown site for an episode of the TV show Ghost Adventures which aired on Travel Channel on October 15, 2010.

Skeptics and "Paranormal Claims Investigators" such as those from the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society have also visited the hotel to test the evidence collected by other parties. [6][7]

Stephen King got the idea for his novel The Shining in 1973 after staying in room 217 in the almost empty hotel on the night before it closed for an extended period.[8]

The neoclassical hotel was the inspiration for the fictional Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's novel The Shining – while he and his wife were staying at the Stanley, King conceived the basic idea for the novel. King was subsequently disappointed by Stanley Kubrick's decision not to film his 1980 adaption at the Stanley Hotel. It has been used as a location for other films, most notably as the "Hotel Danbury" in the 1994 film Dumb and Dumber,[9] and as the "Overlook Hotel" in the 1997 TV adaption of The Shining, which stayed closer to King's novel than Kubrick's adaption.[10]

In May, investigators with The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) investigated the hotel for the SciFi program Ghost Hunters. TAPS returned to the hotel on October 31, 2006 for a live, six-hour follow-up investigation, with special guest CM Punk. Premiering in July 2010, Ghost Hunters Academy had the finale of the second season take place in The Stanley Hotel. In November 2008, UK channel LIVING broadcast Most Haunted's investigation of the hotel.[11]

Ghost Adventures also taped an episode there in the 4th season during which many different paranormal experiences throughout the property were shown.

In 2013, the Stanley Film Festival, an independent horror film festival, was held at the hotel between May 2 - 5, featuring film screenings, panels, student competitions, audience awards and receptions.[12]

In January of 2014, country-punk band Murder By Death played a show at the hotel. After the concert's success, brought upon by enthusiastic fans, they soon announced that they'd be returning for three nights in a row in January of 2015.

The mansion setting of the 1996 survival horror video game Resident Evil drew much of its influence from the Stanley Hotel.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. ^ a b c "Rocky Mountain Legends". LegendsOfAmerica.com. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  3. ^ a b c "Rocky Mountain National Park - Culture". US-Parks.com. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
  4. ^ "Ghost Hunters". SciFi Channel. Season 2. Episode 222. 2006-05-31. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Hawes, Jason; Wilson, Grant; Friedman, Michael Jan (2007). "The Stanley Hotel February 2006". Ghost Hunting: True Stories of Unexplained Phenomena from The Atlantic Paranormal Society. New York: Pocket Books. pp. 240–259. ISBN 978-1-4165-4113-4. LCCN 2007016062.
  6. ^ "Investigations of the Stanley Hotel" (PDF). Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society. 2008-10-15. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
  7. ^ Stollznow, Karen (December 21, 2009), "The Stanley Hotel: An Investigation", Skeptical Inquirer, retrieved 2011-03-07
  8. ^ Hawes, Wilson and Friedman, p. 244.
  9. ^ "Stanley Hotel Ghost Story". Allstays.com. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  10. ^ ‘The Shining’ Hotel Needs You to Design Their New Maze!
  11. ^ "New Most Haunted - Tuesday 11 November - Programme Details". Radio Times. Retrieved 2008-11-01.
  12. ^ McHargue, Brad. "Inaugural Stanley Film Festival to Showcase Independent Horror Cinema May 2-5 at the Stanley Hotel". Mile High Cinema. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
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