The Stanley Hotel
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Location | 333 Wonderview Avenue, Estes Park, Colorado |
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Coordinates | 40°23′0″N 105°31′6″W / 40.38333°N 105.51833°WCoordinates: 40°23′0″N 105°31′6″W / 40.38333°N 105.51833°W |
Architect | Freelan Oscar Stanley, T. Robert Weiger, Henry Rogers |
Architectural style | Colonial Revival |
NRHP Reference # | 85001256 |
Added to NRHP | May 26, 1977 (Expanded June 20, 1985 & April 16, 1998) |
The Stanley Hotel is a 420-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Approximately five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, the Stanley offers panoramic views of Lake Estes, the Rockies and especially Long's Peak. It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley of Stanley Steamer fame and opened on July 4, 1909, catering to the American upper class at the turn of the century. The hotel and its surrounding structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Stanley Hotel also hosted the horror novelist Stephen King, serving as inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in his 1977 bestseller The Shining and its 1980 film adaption of the same name, as well as the location for the 1997 miniseries. Today, it includes a restaurant, spa, and bed-and-breakfast and provides guided tours which feature the history and alleged paranormal activity of the site.
Freelan Oscar Stanley (1849-1940) and his twin brother Francis Edgar (1849-1918) were born in Kingfield, Maine. In 1876, he married Flora Jane Record Tileston. Although he began his career as a teacher, in 1881 he contracted tuberculosis and resolved to adopt a more active career. From 1885 to 1904, he was co-owner with his brother at the Stanley Dry Plate Company and, from before 1900 until 1917, they operated the Stanley Motor Carriage Company earning them minor places in the early history of both photography and the automobile. F. O. Stanley was also a maker of concert-quality violins and a pioneer of reinforced concrete construction. From 1890, he and his brother were residents of the upper-class Hunnewell Hill neighborhood in Newton, Massachusetts, where they founded the Hunnewell Social Club.