I Stayed within the Haunted Resort That Impressed ‘The Shining’

It’s exhausting to think about a lodge extra firmly ingrained in popular culture than The Stanley Resort. Even for those who don’t comprehend it by identify, you probably comprehend it by popularity: It’s the lodge the place, on one fateful night time, Stephen King roamed the empty halls and dreamed up top-of-the-line horror tales ever written.  However even earlier than it was “The Shining” lodge, folks have been calling it essentially the most haunted lodge in America.

I spent a weekend there this October, and had some actually chilling moments — however, in fact, that’s precisely what I hoped would occur.

In case you go to the lodge in Estes Park, Colorado — even for those who don’t know something about “The Shining” or the lodge’s outsized popularity as a delightfully spooky vacation spot — you’d probably sense that there is one thing particular about this place. As you ascend the mountains that lead as much as Rocky Mountain Nationwide Park, after which drive down into Estes Valley, there’s an actual sense of constructing anticipation. And when you’re within the valley, you’ll see it: an imposing white lodge with a purple roof, set towards a pine-covered mountain with a serene lake under. In the course of the day, The Stanley is a beacon to weary vacationers, hungry diners, and appreciators of grand, historic motels. At night time throughout spooky season, it glows a sinister purple, a harbinger of what you’ll discover inside: REDRUM.

“It has simply acquired a way of place and belonging the place the shopper truthfully believes it’s theirs,” Stanley Resort proprietor John Cullen instructed Journey + Leisure. “Everyone leaves right here with a narrative they will inform.”

I’ve stayed in quite a lot of allegedly haunted places earlier than, just like the Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire and the Queen Mary, a cruise ship-turned-floating lodge in Los Angeles. They settle for their spooky reputations — any staffer on the Mount Washington can let you know a narrative of a magical expertise, and the Queen Mary presents ghost excursions — however The Stanley goes a step additional to embrace its haunted legends. The Colorado lodge does not simply provide ghost excursions; it hosts recreations of Victorian seances, exhibits by grasp illusionists, and common lectures by visiting paranormal specialists.

The Stanley can also be residence to the “frozen useless man” who impressed the annual Frozen Lifeless Man Competition, which Cullen described as “kind of a winter competition, kind of a Burning Man” that brings in 10,000 revelers each March to see Bredo Morstoel, a cryogenically frozen Norwegian man whom The Stanley adopted when too many guests have been overwhelming his authentic resting place. There’s a Frozen Lifeless Man Tour, along with historic daytime lodge excursions and people aforementioned ghost excursions. Cullen mentioned that 184,000 folks take a tour of the lodge yearly.

You would undoubtedly go to The Stanley for a scare-free keep and never see any ghosts. In my three nights there, I didn’t expertise something overtly supernatural, apart from attending lectures by paranormal investigators Amy Bruni of Kindred Spirits and Greg and Dana Newkirk from Hellier. However you undoubtedly couldn’t miss a sure aura in regards to the place, largely impressed by the legend of Stephen King’s notorious go to.

The story goes like this: King and his spouse Tabitha checked into the lodge for one night time in late September 1974, not realizing it was the final night time of service earlier than closing down for the season. They have been the one visitors within the lodge, they usually stayed in Room 217, the Presidential Suite. It was purely serendipity that that specific room is among the many lodge’s most haunted. In 1919, a gasoline explosion severely injured a chambermaid in that room, however she healed — with hospital payments paid by the lodge — and labored there for the remainder of her life. At present, her ghost is rumored to be so connected to the lodge that she tidies up the area — whether or not residing visitors need her to or not.

By King’s keep, the lodge had fallen on exhausting instances. It seemed nothing prefer it does right now, due to a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} in renovations and an unlimited resurgence in curiosity, due largely to the ebook King wrote after his go to, and the mini-series adaptation of “The Shining” that King filmed there in 1997. (He famously didn’t just like the Kubrick model.) “That night time, I dreamed of my three-year-old son working by the corridors, wanting again over his shoulder, eyes extensive, screaming… I wakened with an amazing jerk, sweating throughout, inside an inch of falling off the bed.” King wrote of The Stanley on his web site. “I acquired up, lit a cigarette, sat within the chair looking the window on the Rockies, and by the point the cigarette was finished, I had the bones of the ebook firmly set in my thoughts.”

King has all the time been clear that The Overlook from “The Shining” isn’t immediately impressed by The Stanley, and that he didn’t expertise something otherworldly there. “A number of the most stunning resort motels on this planet are situated in Colorado, however the lodge in these pages is predicated on none of them,” the creator writes on the second web page of “The Shining,” simply after the dedication. “The Overlook and the folks related to it exist wholly inside the creator’s creativeness.”

So whereas he was impressed to jot down a few lodge full of sinister, murderous ghosts at The Stanley, he isn’t writing about the lodge in that ebook. However you inform that to the individuals who purchase wine glasses with REDRUM (Danny Torrance’s recurring warning about “homicide”) engraved on them, keychains with vintage keys to Room 217, or stickers of typewriters that say “all work and no play,” the road Jack Torrance repeats again and again as he loses his thoughts. Followers have stolen the room quantity plaque to Room 217 so many instances that there are replicas on the market, as properly.

Those self same folks wander the hedge maze constructed after so many guests requested the place the lodge’s was, anticipating to see it as a result of The Overlook has one within the movie. They sit on the vintage picket bar in The Cascades, the lodge’s wonderful eating restaurant, and order Redrum Punch, or retire to the wine bar for a glass of 217 Cabernet made for the lodge in Napa Valley. They watch the lodge’s devoted tv channel that performs each the Kubrick and the King variations of “The Shining” on a 24-hour loop.

At present, Room 217 is the Stephen King Suite. It’s crammed together with his books, together with a hardcover copy of Black Home which followers have became a journal detailing their experiences within the room, writing notes to slide between the pages of their very own spooky encounters. Essentially the most die-hard King followers deal with their notes to “fellow Fixed Reader,” the time period he makes use of to consult with his followers, earlier than detailing experiences of doorways opening and shutting on their very own, lights flickering on and off, or shadow figures showing in darkened corners.

There’s one other solution to step into “The Shining” for followers of the movie. “The Shining” Suite within the caretaker’s cottage is a trustworthy recreation of Room 237 from Kubrick’s “The Shining” (it was modified from 217 within the movie adaptation).  The carpets are that unmistakable geometric sample, and the furnishings is iconically midcentury. The one factor that’s misplaced is an oil portray of Stephen King hanging on one wall. Within the closet, a protected guards an authentic screen-used axe from Kubrick’s film, which value the lodge $250,000 at public sale.

“And naturally, you may’t have a ‘Shining’ bed room with out…” Cullen mentioned as he opened the toilet door for me to disclose a mint inexperienced room, with a tiled flooring resulting in a tub with sheer bathe curtains hanging ominously from above. It’s a precise, to the element, duplicate of the toilet from the film, the scariest scene in one of many scariest motion pictures of all time. I’ve learn “The Shining” most likely 5 instances, and I’ve seen furnishings transfer by itself in a haunted lodge room on the Mount Washington, so not many issues actually creep me out. However the sight of that loo was positively chilling, and it took me a couple of minutes to metal my nerves to stroll inside.

“The Shining” Suite is barely obtainable to remain in a single weekend a yr, and it’s booked by an public sale. “It went for $100,000 for one weekend, and one hundred pc goes to charity,” Cullen mentioned, including with amusing: “Now we have the lowest-occupancy lodge room ever constructed.” You won’t be capable to ebook the room to remain in, however you may undoubtedly see it — “The Shining” tour runs daily, and it consists of different spooky tales, just like the real-life origin of the spectral twins of their blue clothes from the ebook.

I cherished my keep at The Stanley Resort, however I’ll admit: I wished to expertise extra ghosts on my go to. There are tales of a ghostly Flora Stanley, lodge founder F.O. Stanley’s spouse, who’s rumored to play her beloved piano within the live performance corridor, and of a safety guard who died almost 20 years in the past however nonetheless patrols that constructing at night time. Mr. Stanley’s ghost has been seen on the reception desk. The foyer stairs are a typical place for folks to report seeing glimpses of people that aren’t actually there (or are they?), and on the fourth flooring, folks typically say they hear kids working and taking part in when there are none round. After which, in fact, there’s Room 217. If you wish to attempt your luck sleeping there, you’ll need to put some planning into it — that room sells out months upfront and is booked years out for Halloween night time.