July 18, 2007
Ghost Hunt at the Stanley Hotel
By Stan Dyer
If you go to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park looking for the "Overlook Hotel" from the Stephen King novel and the movie "The Shining", you won't find it. Although the Stanley was the inspiration, The Overlook Hotel is the ghost hotel that doesn't exist. Even the movie was filmed in England, but with a brief, cameo appearance of the exterior of the "Timberline Lodge" in Mount Hood, Oregon. Nonetheless, The Stanley has a few ghosts of its own and was the site for the "made-for-TV" movie filmed in the mid 90's.
In 1903, Freelan Oscar Stanley and his wife Flora came to Colorado from Massachusetts seeking relief from tuberculosis in the clean, dry air of the Rocky Mountains. They built an eastern style home among the rustic accommodations in Estes Park. Through a series of events, they decided to build a hotel and broke ground 100 years ago in 1907. The hotel opened for business June 22, 1909, but the real story of the hotel began in late September of 1974.
On the last day of the season in 1974, Stephen King and his wife Tabitha checked into room 217 of the Stanley as the hotel's only guests. In the quiet solitude of the mountains and tucked away in a huge, old hotel, King's imagination was triggered. The imagination that just finished "Carrie" and "Salem's Lot" found inspiration at the Stanley, and "The Shine" took form. The title comes from a line John Lennon's "Instant Karma" that says, "And we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun..." Maybe it was his way of affirming a belief in the afterlife. Still, none of the ghosts from the book or either movie ever visited the Stanley. They were residents only in King's mind brought to life by his imagination. The Stanley doesn't need more ghosts. It has plenty of its own.
In addition to sightings in each of the many meeting rooms, special rooms and dining rooms, at least 12 of the guest rooms have accommodated spirit visitors. We can only guess how many other noises, voices and images were not reported and were cast aside as just something odd, unusual or went completely unnoticed. F.O. Stanley and his wife are said to be frequent guests themselves. They loved the old place so much it seems they don't want to leave. People have reported F.O. shooting pool in the Billiard Room even though there are no tables in there anymore. Music is heard on occasion coming from the Music Room when no one is present. This was Flora Stanley's favorite room and people suspect it is she tickling the ivory on that piano. As for me, I am an ardent non-believer in such haunting and I had to see for myself. I came looking for ghosts.
The main building is the place to stay. It took a little doing, but we managed to get a room just a few doors away from the room where Stephen King was inspired. The hotel loves to accommodate visitor's spectral curiosity by hosting tours, hanging historic images on the walls, and, for the coup de grace, playing the first version of "The Shining" with Jack Nicholson in every room on a continuous loop. If you aren't inspired when you come, the curiosity is sure to get you before you leave. It's instant karma.
Personally, I was inspired long before I arrived. I knew what I was looking for and I knew where to look. I visited each of the gathering rooms and spent some time in my own investigations. I could feel the warmth of history, but I saw no specters. I sat in the bar and waited for the ghost bartender. The only visitation I received was from a very real woman carrying a martini. It was not my imagination and it was good. I walked each of the four floors with my ears and nose to the wind. It was creepy in a ghost story inspired sort of way, but, for the most part, it was just a beautiful, historic old building. I loved being around so much American history and being transported in my mind back to earlier times. Touching history is the closest thing I know of to real time travel, and the Stanley worked its magic on me. Finally, I saw what I came looking for. There it was, right before my eyes.
I had my first, real visitation on the front porch of the Stanley. After searching all the historic halls and rooms inside the building, soaking up the years of time passage, and trying to feel how it must of felt to be either the very wealthy who built and visited the hotel, or the very poor who laid the stone foundations and nailed up all the framework, it all came together. Beneath the glorious, billowy sky filled with bright sunshine, I saw the many mountains, their shadows and the vista that remained virtually unchanged for centuries. To the left, Lake Estes nestled in the valley, to the right mountains reaching for the clouds, and all in front of me was the perfect vision of America that one can only see from the front porch of this famous mountain hideaway. Standing right beside me were the spirits of Freelan Stanley and his wife Flora. Oh, they weren't really there, and neither were their ghosts, but I could feel what they must have felt and what so many others after them still feel to this day. I saw the ghost of history shaking hands with the ghost of Madison Avenue.
Without a story, without a history, this is just a nice, old hotel. The hotel could not stand by itself. By 1995, it was in bankruptcy. Along came the new owners who took every advantage of the history, including the questionable ghost history. Using Madison Avenue marketing, they created the ghosts that woke up the history. Suddenly, there was something interesting about the Stanley again, and people came to see what it was. People keep coming. In that sense, the history of the Stanley lives on like a ghost, barely visible except in the imagination, and, yet, very real to the beholder. Yes, I found it. I found what I came looking for.
If you go to the Stanley looking for ghosts, don't look for the "Overlook Hotel". Instead, let the ghosts of Madison Avenue take over the inner child in you who loves ghost stories. Imagine all the stories are true, and then use your own imagination to travel back in time to when Theodore Roosevelt was president and Molly Brown walked her way to Room 217. Take a history trip in your mind and let the ghosts of 100 years of history connect you to the past. I guarantee you'll be inspired and you'll come away with your own ghost story that you will want to share with all your family and friends. "And we all shine on, like the moon and stars and the sun..."
(Be sure to view the photo essay in the photo section of YourHub.com. Twelve images capture the truth of the ghosts of Stanley)