The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, is the real-life hotel that inspired Stephen King’s The Shining. King himself stayed there in 1974, and the eerie atmosphere, especially during a solitary night in room 217, sparked the ideas that would become his novel (and influenced the film adaptation). The Stanley Hotel is widely cited as the primary real-world model for the fictional Overlook Hotel, with accounts linking King’s stay to the setting and mood of the story.
