Yes, there are ghosts at the Stanley Hotel, but they are rarely seen and mind their own business. In all my years as a guide at the hotel, neither I nor any of my fellow guides have ever seen a ghost. Not even during the Halloween tours. It is usually from stories handed down by staff that we learn about the ghosts who have made the Stanley Hotel their ethereal home.
When Stephen King wrote the book “The Shining,” many people began to come to Estes Park, Colorado to check out the Stanley Hotel and see for themselves. They try to stay in the room that King stayed in, to see if some of the ghosts from his horror novel would appear. The truth is that even King did not see ghosts. He and his wife were on vacation during the slow early winter months of 1974, and tourists had vacated the hotel. He is said to have based his book more on his feelings of isolation, rather than any ghost sightings.
In its early days, the Stanley Hotel was one of the grand hotels of America. F. O. Stanley and his brother F. E. Stanley had made a small fortune with their dry vs. wet process photograph development out East. F. O. had come down with tuberculosis, so he and his wife followed the crowds to the dry mountain air for a cure. It worked, and he lived a few more decades, showing his thanks to the town by turning it into a modern busy vacation destination.
Not only did F. O. open his hotel in 1909, but he helped the town start a bank, build roads, and developed electricity for the area. The brothers invented the Stanley Steamer, which was a powerful car that could bring vacationers over the rocky mountain roads to Estes Park, which many claim was the start of automobile tourism. Previously the rich would arrive on trains and go straight to their hotel.
With all of his happy memories of regaining his health and contributing to the economic prosperity of Estes Park, it seems perfectly fitting that his ghost will occasionally be seen sitting on the grand porch of the Stanley Hotel. Some people think they have seen him playing billiards in the now empty men's game room.
His wife Flora was a proper east coast woman, and she was willing to stay in this wilderness if Stanley would accommodate her with a Georgian Revival-style home. Both the hotel and their home followed the formal style in the midst of the many rustic wood lodgings. She also wanted a piano in the sitting room of the hotel, where she could play for herself or guests.
Yes, there are still times when the piano keys are gently played by her ghost. But she disappears as soon as the door is opened. The room was used by ladies at the turn of the century to have tea and write notes home to their family. In more recent years, it has been used for public music concerts. Her demands to make the place classy have lived on.
Over the years, the hotel was starting to show its age. This is when Stephen King made his visit. When “The Shining” was turned into a movie, it was filmed in England, with exterior images of The Timberline Lodge in Oregon being used to represent the Overlook Hotel in the book. Timberline and Stanley look very similar. King was not pleased with Stanley Kubrick's very loose adaptation; and years later, he got his chance to remake it as a television movie and do it at the Stanley Hotel. He had the old lobby brought back to its original glory, although he chose to give it the embellishments of a grand Eastern hotel, instead of using the original colors of the Stanley.
While King wrote about a blocked writer who goes nuts in a snowbound hotel, he had forgotten that in reality the hotel is never snowbound. He almost had to haul in snow with trucks for the movie but was saved at the last minute by a heavy snowfall. Some of the photographs and memorabilia of the film's shooting are occasionally on display on the lower level, as well as the 1980 Jack Nicholson version of the movie.
Only guests are allowed to go up the grand staircase and investigate what King’s room number 217 looks like. If a person is lucky enough to be walking by when the maid is cleaning the room, and they get a peek inside, they will find that it looks like any other elegantly decorated room. And, of course, none of the ghosts in the book ever appear in the room or anywhere else in the hotel.
The Stanley Hotel retains its old world charm and grace. After a few different owners, one finally came along that was willing to invest millions of dollars into restoring the 138 room hotel to its original grandeur, and maintain its historic significance. It offers clothing and gift shops, a spa, two restaurants, and a changing venue of small shops or museum displays on the lower level. The Stanley Museum is located downtown. Historic and ghost tours are offered. The hotel is located at an elevated position above the downtown streets and has magnificent views of the Rocky Mountains. The Rocky Mt. National Park is just six miles away.
Over the years, a few desk clerks and cleaning people have seen ghosts or objects moving. Some say that twelve rooms have ghosts, as collaborated by a few similar testimonies. But the staff will not tell prospective guests which rooms they are, so as not to scare or disappoint them. Guests do not seem to see ghosts as much, perhaps because the ghosts feel more at home with the staff.
The ghosts are not there to frighten anyone, but seem to be going about their business as usual. Several years ago a staff person was cleaning a hallway carpet and saw a man, in the corner of her eye, approaching her. She thought it odd that he wore a top hat, and as she looked up, he walked right through her. She refused to work in that part of the building ever again.