Haunted hotel guide · Estes Park, Colorado

The Haunted Stanley Hotel, Estes Park: Room 217, the Concert Hall and the Ghosts Behind The Shining

The Stanley opened on July 4, 1909, and one autumn night in 1974 it gave Stephen King the nightmare that became The Shining. More than a century on, it is the most famous haunted hotel in America, and the hotel itself sells the ghosts.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate hotels

5.0/5Haunted Rooms Score

1909Opened July 4

Room 217Most requested room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Stanley Hotel sits on a hill above Estes Park, a white Colonial Revival resort with a red roof and a cupola, backed by granite peaks and five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley, the steam car inventor who came to the Rockies in 1903 to recover from tuberculosis, and his wife Flora. Guests and staff say both of them are still here. It tops our list of haunted hotels in Colorado, and it is one of the most visited haunted places in Colorado.

Unlike many old hotels, the Stanley does not play down its reputation. It sells Room 217 by name, offers a set of “Spirited” rooms on the fourth floor with the ghost story printed on each room page, and runs nightly ghost tours with its own guides. This guide covers every part of that story: Room 217 and the housekeeper who never left, Room 401’s closet, the children of the fourth floor, Paul and Lucy in the Concert Hall, Flora’s piano, Stephen King’s night in 1974, and how to actually book the rooms and tours. As always with ghost stories, these are accounts from guests, staff and tour guides, not proven facts.

The ghosts of the Stanley Hotel

Elizabeth Wilson, the housekeeper of Room 217

On June 25, 1911, a gas leak in the hotel’s lighting system ignited when head chambermaid Elizabeth Wilson entered Room 217 with a lit candle. The blast damaged part of the hotel and left her badly hurt, though newspaper accounts of the day differ on the details and some later retellings are more dramatic than the record. What is agreed is that she survived, returned to work and stayed at the Stanley for decades, until around 1950.

Guests say she is still doing the job. People staying in Room 217 report finding their luggage unpacked, clothes folded and shoes lined up neatly at the foot of the bed, and the hotel repeats those reports on its own Room 217 page. Lights switch on and off, and a long-told story says she disapproves of unmarried couples sharing a bed: guests describe a cold presence settling between them in the night. Tour guide Richard Estep summed her up to The Gazette: “Mrs. Wilson does what she wants, to who she wants.”

F.O. and Flora Stanley

Flora Stanley was an accomplished pianist, and the story most often told about the hotel’s founders is that she still plays. Guests and staff describe piano music coming from the empty Music Room, keys moving on their own and a colder patch of air beside the grand piano. A few people say they have seen a woman seated at the bench.

F.O. Stanley, who died in 1940 at 91, is linked to the bar and the billiard room, where guests report the feeling of being watched by a well-dressed older man and the occasional glimpse of him in the lobby. Unlike some hotel ghosts, the Stanleys are always described as calm, as if they are simply still at home.

Paul and Lucy in the Concert Hall

The Concert Hall was built beside the hotel in 1909 and is said to be as active as the main building. Its best-known ghost is Paul, described by guides as a handyman and night watchman who enforced an 11 p.m. curfew. Guests on night tours report a man’s voice telling them to “get out”, and one guide told AFAR that many people feel a pressure in the chest in the room linked to him. The hotel now sells a Paul’s Spirited Grand King, where guests say he straightens things, opens drawers and dislikes clutter.

Lucy is the hall’s other regular. In one version of her story she was a homeless young woman who sheltered in the building; in another she is a girl who does not like having her photo taken. Tour groups describe her answering questions with knocks and flashlights switching on and off. Guides also mention Eddy, a man who seems to be forever changing light bulbs.

The children of the fourth floor

The fourth floor was once staff and servant quarters under the eaves, and it is the floor with the most reports. Guests hear children laughing and running in the hallway, the sound of a ball bouncing, and small footsteps outside their doors late at night. The hotel’s own description of its Spirited King room mentions laughter, quick footsteps, swaying hangers, covers pulled off in the night and being tickled.

Some tour guides speak of a boy, sometimes called Billy, who plays with guests’ hair. It is worth knowing that The Gazette, looking into the story, found that records show no child died at the Stanley. That does not stop the fourth floor from being the most requested floor in the building.

The cowboy and Lord Dunraven

A tall cowboy is said to stand at the foot of the bed in a fourth-floor corner room, long associated with Room 428. Guests describe a shadow in the corner and, in some stories, a kiss on the forehead. The hotel’s Cowboy Spirited Grand King page says guests have seen him “pacing quietly at the foot of the bed, hat in hand”. Furniture is heard being dragged overhead, though there is no room above.

The Irish Earl of Dunraven, who owned much of the Estes Valley before F.O. Stanley, is linked to the room traditionally numbered 407 and to the hotel’s Spirited Balcony King, where guests report cherry cigar smoke, shadowy male figures and flickering lights.

The grand staircase, the tunnels and the dog

The main staircase is nicknamed “the vortex” by some guides, a place where spirits are said to move between floors. In 2016 a guest’s photo of the staircase appeared to show a woman in a dark dress at the top, which went viral even though no one could say what it showed.

Below the hotel, staff once moved through service tunnels so guests would not see them. Tour stories put a pastry chef down there, noticed only by the smell of baking. And in the small pet cemetery, Cassie, a golden retriever, is said to still scratch at guest room doors.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 217 (Room 217 Spirited Grand King): A bright corner room at the front of the hotel on the second floor, with a king bed, sleeper sofa and mountain views, sleeping two. It is the room most closely tied to Stephen King’s 1974 stay and to Elizabeth Wilson. Book it online by name; dates open about a year ahead and October goes first.
• Room 401: Called the creepiest room in the hotel by many guests. Its closet door is said to open by itself; Ghost Hunters star Jason Hawes reported it happening while he slept here. Women have reported being touched by an unseen man in the closet, and one guest said his wedding ring rose off the counter and dropped down the drain.
• Room 407: Linked to Lord Dunraven. Guests report lights turning off and on, being tucked in by something unseen, a weight sitting on the end of the bed, and a face seen at the window from the lawn below.
• Room 418: The room most tied to the ghost children. Guests report laughter outside the door, flickering lights, moving hangers and bedcovers yanked away. One young girl staying with her mother said a little boy tickled her feet and vanished when she told him to stop.
• Room 428 and the Concert Hall: Room 428 is the cowboy’s room, with footsteps and dragging furniture from the roof space above. If you cannot get a Spirited room, book a night tour: it is the easiest way into the Concert Hall, where Paul and Lucy are said to be most active.

History of The Stanley Hotel

Freelan Oscar Stanley and his twin Francis made their fortune with dry plates for photography and then the Stanley Steamer car. In 1903, sick with tuberculosis, F.O. was sent to Colorado, and he credited a single summer in the Estes Valley with restoring his health. He bought land that had been coveted by the Irish Earl of Dunraven, and in 1907 began building a grand summer resort for wealthy travelers, with Denver architect T. Robert Wieger, Henry “Lord Cornwallis” Rogers and contractor Frank Kirchoff.

The Stanley opened on July 4, 1909, a steel-framed Colonial Revival hotel on granite foundations with electricity, telephones and modern bathrooms, unusual in the mountains then. It had no heating at first, as it was built for summer only. The Concert Hall was finished the same year, with a stage trap door and a bowling alley below, and the Manor House, a smaller version of the main hotel now called The Lodge, followed in 1910. A gas explosion in Room 217 on June 25, 1911, damaged the building and injured Elizabeth Wilson. F.O. Stanley sold the hotel in 1926, took it back briefly, and let it go for good in 1930; he died in 1940.

By the 1970s the hotel was in decline. Stephen King and his wife Tabitha, then living in Boulder, drove up in fall 1974 and stayed one night as the hotel was closing for the season; they were almost the only guests and ate alone in an empty dining room to recorded music. King later said he dreamed of his three-year-old son being chased through the corridors by a fire hose, woke, smoked a cigarette looking out at the Rockies, and had the bones of the book by morning. The Shining was published in 1977. The room is widely given as 217, which Wikipedia calls likely but not certain.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film was not shot here: the interiors were built on a soundstage in England and the exteriors came from Timberline Lodge in Oregon, and the film changed Room 217 to Room 237. The Stanley did host the 1997 ABC miniseries of The Shining, produced by King himself, and it was the “Danbury” hotel in Dumb and Dumber in 1994. Paranormal TV followed, including Ghost Hunters, which investigated in 2006, and Ghost Adventures.

Grand Heritage Hotel Group owned the Stanley from 1995 to 2025. It is now held by the Stanley Partnership for Art, Culture and Education, a subsidiary of the state’s Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority, and managed by Sage Hospitality Group. A planned Stanley Film Center and a multiyear expansion with new rooms and a new lobby are underway, so expect some construction around the grounds.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book Room 217 the day dates open. The hotel takes reservations about a year in advance, and October nights sell first. If 217 is gone, book one of the fourth-floor Spirited room types instead and ask for a specific number in the notes.
• Book the after-dark Stanley Ghost Tour ahead. It costs $35, lasts 60 minutes, takes up to 20 people and is for ages 8 and up. Tours never enter guest rooms, so you will not see inside 217 on a tour; you need to stay in it.
• Do The Shining Tour too if you love the book or film: it explains what King took from the hotel and why the Kubrick film was shot elsewhere.
• You do not have to stay overnight to take a tour, but tour tickets are the only way non-guests get into most of the building after dark. The tour office is on the lower level; call (970) 577-4110.
• Halloween is the busiest night of the year, with a one-day Halloween Ghost Tour. For a quieter stay with the same stories, go in January to March, when the hotel runs winter weekday offers.
• Bring layers. Estes Park sits at about 7,500 feet, and nights are cold even in summer.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Brown Palace Hotel, Denver: Suite 904 and a phantom string quartet, 70 miles south
• Lumber Baron Inn, Denver: a Victorian B&B tied to an unsolved 1970 double murder
• Hotel Jerome, Aspen: the water boy of Room 310
• Goldminer Hotel, Nederland: a small 1897 miners’ hotel on the scenic Peak to Peak route south
• Haunted hotels in Colorado

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• The Stanley Hotel: Room 217 Spirited Grand King
• The Stanley Hotel: Tours
• The Stanley Hotel: The Stanley Ghost Tours
• The Stanley Hotel: Stanley Spirited King and other Spirited rooms
• Wikipedia: Stanley Hotel
• 5280: How to spend a night in the Stanley Hotel's haunted Room 217 (October 2026)
• The Gazette: Colorado's Stanley Hotel offers plenty of haunted tales
• AFAR: Don't believe in ghosts? Spend a night at this haunted hotel

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