Heritage Hospitality
The Stanley Hotel
A fitting story for October 31: Colorado's most famous historic hotel, and how it was kept
I'll confess I'm not a Halloween person. But on October 31, it only seems fitting to talk about the Stanley Hotel. Every year about now, someone asks whether it's really haunted. I can't answer that. But I can tell you why it's still standing, and that's a pretty good story too.
A hotel built on fresh air
Freelan Oscar Stanley was a builder long before he built a hotel. He and his identical twin brother, Francis, grew up in Kingfield, Maine, and went into business together. Their first big success was a dry-plate process for photography, and in 1904 they sold the Stanley Dry Plate Company to Eastman Kodak. By then they were already building the Stanley Steamer, a steam-powered car that became one of the best-known automobiles of its day. In 1906, a Stanley set a land speed record of about 127 miles per hour. The brothers sold the car company in 1917.
In the middle of all that, in 1903, Stanley came to Colorado sick with tuberculosis. Doctors told him the dry mountain air might save his life. It did. He and his wife, Flora, came back to Estes Park every summer after that.
So he built a place for other people to come too. The Stanley Hotel opened on July 4, 1909, a white Colonial Revival grand hotel with red roofs and a long porch looking out at the Rockies. Stanley built his own hydroelectric plant on the Fall River to power it, which made it one of the first fully electrified hotels of its day.
The guest who made it famous
In 1974, a young writer and his wife checked in for one night at the end of the season. The hotel was nearly empty, the halls were quiet, and the staff was getting ready to close for winter. The writer was Stephen King, and that night helped inspire The Shining.
The famous 1980 movie wasn't actually filmed there. King's own 1997 TV version was, with the Stanley standing in for the Overlook Hotel. Today there's even a hedge maze on the front lawn, a nod to the movie.
The stories
The Stanley has collected its share of ghost stories over 117 years. Room 217, where King is said to have stayed, is tied to a head chambermaid named Elizabeth Wilson, who was injured in a 1911 gas explosion. Guests say they've come back to find their clothes neatly folded. Others report children's laughter on the fourth floor, and some say they've heard Flora Stanley's piano playing in the music room.
I'll let you decide what you believe. I'll just say the housekeeping reviews are excellent.
The real story: it was kept
Here's the part I love most. Grand old hotels like the Stanley don't usually survive. They age, the repairs pile up, and too often they're torn down or gutted into something that could be anywhere.
The Stanley changed hands more than once over the years. Stanley himself sold it, bought it back, and sold it again. His companies were sold long ago, and his family hasn't owned the hotel in nearly a century. But what he built is still standing. It made the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. And in 2025, a public partnership created by a Colorado state authority bought the hotel to keep it, with plans to restore and expand it so it can keep welcoming guests for decades to come.
That's preservation. Not freezing a place in time, but caring for it so the next generation can walk through the same front door.
And if you find yourself at the Stanley this weekend, say hello to Room 217 for me. From the hallway.
Jodi Ashton, Founder & Managing Director
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Photo: The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado, opened 1909. Library of Congress.