Hotel Stanley and Stephen King's "The Shining" Horror Romance
The Stanley Hotel
In 1903, Freelan Oscar Stanley was suffering from consumption. At that time, the doctors recommended him to get some fresh air, in an environment lit by sunlight and to have a healthy diet, so he did. He spent one season at Estes Park, Colorado and his health really improved a lot, so he vowed to return each summer for the rest of his life. As he and his wife Flora were used to the sophistication of East Coast society, they decided to build a beautiful hotel, which helped greatly to develop the quiet place.
The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, United States, opened its doors on July 4, 1909 (United States Independence Day), to meet the American upper class. The hotel has a Georgian architecture and is just a few miles from Rocky Mountain National Park, giving its guest a gorgeous view of the Estes Valley and the Rocky Mountains, famous postcards of the United States. And most important of all: IT IS A MYSTERIOUS PLACE BECAUSE IT IS SAID TO BE A HAUNTED HOTEL.
<- First edition of the book "The Shining"
Movie "The shining" of 1980 ->
Stephen King and his wife Tabitha spent a night in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel. Wandering the corridors, he imagined that would be the perfect setting for a story about ghosts. In the hotel bar, he heard stories told by the bartender about tragedies that have occurred in the hotel and room 217. The novelist dreamed with his three-year-old son, running down the aisles being chased by a fire hose. Stephen woke up, lit a cigarette, sat in the chair, looked out over the Rocky Mountains, and when he had finished smoking, he had sketched his important novel "The Shining". Many readers consider this book the scariest novel they have ever read, and it has achieved such fame that it has inspired a film of the same name.
However, the movie "The Shining" by Stanley Kubrick was just an adaptation of the book and the movie scenes were not recorded at the Stanley Hotel, to the frustration of the Hotel’s staff and Stephen King himself. In my opinion, would be really more interesting if the movie had been recorded at this hotel, as it would make it even more real and scary. We can’t forget that in 1997 ABC aired a miniseries about the novel which was very useful for the owner of the hotel, who invested, for example, in ghost tours and people to tell stories about the ghosts that roam the Hotel.