In which Snow Pigeon attempts to debut a series on historically significant hotels.

Located in Estes Park, Colorado, at an elevation of 7,600 feet is the 140-room Stanley Hotel. Freelan Oscar Stanley, co-founder of Stanley Motor Carriage Company, suffered from tuberculosis. Like many rich Easterners, he often traveled to Colorado to “take the air,” to benefit from the drier climate. 

Falling in love with Estes Park, he decided to turn the small community into a resort town. When the main hotel was completed in 1909, his guests would travel via his company’s fleet of steam-powered cars from the nearest train depot in Lyons, a distance of 20 miles on today’s US Route 36. (His company went bankrupt in 1924 after declining sales to that newfangled Model T.) The Stanley Hotel was one of the first hotels with electricity, which came from the nearby Fall River Hydroplant. The campus has eleven contributing structures, including the main hotel, a concert hall, carriage house, gate house, and more. 

When Stephen King and his wife Tabitha visited in 1974, the hotel was about to close for the winter season. One night on the vast, empty grounds inspired The Shining. The 1997 miniseries was filmed on the hotel grounds. 

The hotel stays open year-round now. In 2015, they built a hedge maze where the original front driveway was once located. For three years, they hosted an independent horror film festival, and now they host the cryogenically frozen body of Bredo Morstøl, who inspired the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland. 

The Stanley Hotel is owned by the public-private Stanley Partnership for Art, Culture and Education, and it’s managed by Sage Hospitality, a Denver-based management company that has never returned my calls.