Heeeeere’s ‘The Shining’ hotels
By David G. Allan, CNN
You can stay at The Overlook Hotel, the famously chilling accommodation conjured by author Stephen King and director Stanley Kubrick in their respective versions of “The Shining.” You just need to decide which Overlook Hotel speaks to your soul.
There are as many as three Overlook Hotels. There’s the one that inspired King to write the novel, published in 1977. The one seen in the 1980 Kubrick film adaptation. And the one the film’s interior design is based on.
The story all of them help tell is about a writer, Jack Torrance, who gets a job as the caretaker of a fancy-yet-haunted hotel in the winter off-season and brings his family. The ghostly hotel turns the writer homicidal toward his wife, Wendy, and young son, Danny, and their only hope lies in Danny’s powers of telepathy and precognition, described as “the shining.”
Which Overlook to stay in could be decided by how closely you want your visit to hew to the iconic aesthetic elements of Kubrick’s mesmerizing film: isolation, snow, imposing architecture, eerie framed black-and-white photos, giant fireplaces, Native American motifs, hallways, Room 237.
Or you could feel for the “the shine” itself. As the Overlook’s head chef, Dick Hallorann (played by Scatman Crothers in the film), explains: “Some places are like people. Some shine and some don’t.”
Timberline Lodge: The Skiing
In early March, the snow pack on either side of the winding mountain road up to Oregon’s Timberline Lodge grew with elevation, and the ski season was still in operation. At the road’s dead end, at the lodge’s parking lot, the hairs on my neck stood at attention as the Overlook Hotel came into view.
If you’ve seen “The Shining,” you’ve seen Timberline Lodge, because the exterior shots in the movie are the only ones of an actual hotel (the majority of the film was shot at Elstree Studios in England). Having seen Kubrick’s adaptation at least a dozen times, the sight of the gray hotel in real life made me feel queasy, a nightmare come to life.
Further unsettling was a large, red snowcat parked in the snow next to the lodge, just like the ones in the film. A young boy in a blue, hooded jacket played in the drifts next to it. Danny?
Before it became Hollywood famous, the historic Timberline Lodge was a well-established destination. Built during the Great Depression by workers in FDR’s Works Progress Administration, the old stone Cascadian-style lodge opened to the public in 1937 and soon accommodated skiers enjoying the slopes of Mount Hood. Instead of the fictional hedge maze of Kubrick’s vision, Oregon’s largest mountain overlooks the lodge.
During the long winter season, you walk through the Indian Head-carved front doors to a bustling ski lodge. Guests clomp around in boots or chill in front of a massive five-sided stone fireplace that rises three stories up and is tended to by wood-hurling staff. The inviting stone and wood interior, flanked by wings of rooms on either side, is quite different — and arguably more beautiful — than the interior shots of the on-screen Overlook. Vintage iron chandeliers hang from Timberline’s high ceilings, under beams made of Douglas fir. Doorways are arched like catacombs in old stone cathedrals.
The bottom level of Timberline Lodge offers colorful displays of its history. While 1930s-era music plays in the background, you can see a recreated guest room with the original WPA furnishings and a copy of the speech Roosevelt gave when he dedicated the lodge in person. Old photos of skiers going back decades are framed near a television showing a loop of vintage silent film of Timberline’s construction. Absent is any mention of “The Shining” or its recent sequel — the mediocre “Doctor Sleep,” released in 2019, in which Danny (all grown up and portrayed by Ewan McGregor) returns to the Overlook — also briefly filmed at the lodge.
Besides a replica fireman’s axe standing on its blade with “Overlook Hotel” written on it displayed behind the front desk, and a “Shining” hoodie with the iconic “Heeeeere’s Johnny!” shot of Jack Nicholson that you can buy in the ski shop, other connections to the classic film are more subtle.
There are the numerous snowcats, the escape vehicle for Wendy and Danny Torrance (played by Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd). Down a hallway, I snuck a peek into the modest but cozy Room 217 that shares its number with the book, but not the film. (Worried that guests would be scared away, the lodge asked Kubrick to pick a number that didn’t correspond to a real room; he went with 237.) In my spare WPA-era “chalet” room on the ground floor, the window was half obscured by snow pack, and the top half offered a view of alpine trees and a gargoyle of a ram’s head jutting out from a corner of the lodge.
Otherwise, Timberline is more charming — in an old-world way — than eerie. A pair of resident St. Bernard dogs delight visitors and staff. Hotel objects are labeled in block letters on wood signs, such as “House Phone” over a black phone on the wall with its digits in a circle. The mail drop is adorned with a carving of a Pony Express rider. The place gives more Wes Anderson than Stephen King.
“Seems to me the skiing up here would be fantastic,” says Jack Torrance (played by Nicholson to entrancing effect), during his interview for the ill-fated caretaker job.
He’s right. Mount Hood, also known as Wy’east to local Indigenous peoples, is an active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range and has one of the longest ski seasons in the country. From the lifts you can see the edge of the eponymous timberline just above the lodge, where it gives way to the snow and bare rock of the climbable and skiable Wy’east.
The best skiing is higher up the mountain, but the most atmospheric spot is the small Phlox Point Cabin, an old ski-in, ski-out warming hut tucked away in a forest glade between two runs. Built in 1930 and later used as overnight shelter for the Boy Scouts for 60 years, it’s now a popular spot for tacos and beer in front a blazing stone fireplace, or around an outdoor fire pit. Inside the main lodge, the Ram’s Head Bar looks out over a snowy tableau of evergreen trees on one side and a view over the fireplaces on the other. The bartender makes a gut-warming cocktail of hot cider and bourbon.
In the pre-dawn morning of my departure, sipping coffee in a prime spot by a fireplace, I had my most “Shining” moment.
Through the massive windows, a far off pair of headlights twinkled between the shadows of trees. Illuminating the patch of snow in front of it, a snowcat wound its way toward us, a ghostly reminder of our wintery isolation, its lights shining through.
The Stanley Hotel: The Haunting
If Timberline Lodge is indifferent to its “Shining” bona fides, the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, has staked its claim — and its business model — on it.
Nine years before the hotel had heat and was able to stay open year-round, King and his wife Tabitha were the only guests on the last night of the 1974 season. After she went to bed, the young writer had a drink served by the off-season caretaker at the time, Lloyd Grady (both names honored separately in “The Shining”: Lloyd the hotel bartender and Grady the winter caretaker who murdered his wife and twin daughters).
While sleeping in Room 217, King had a nightmare about the hotel attacking his son. The rest is pop culture history.
Before taking the popular “Shining Tour” through the hotel property, I sat at the large, illuminated marble Whiskey Bar and ordered a Redrum Punch, a sweet, brownish concoction of rum and fruit flavors expertly prepared by a bartender more amiable than the film’s creepy, if obliging, Lloyd. I would have ordered the Torrance Twist, but I objected to the main ingredient, vodka; the drink’s namesake, fans know, is a bourbon man.
On the tour you learn the hotel would likely have become a ghost itself were it not for King’s fortuitous visit. The subsequent novel, Kubrick film and newer mini-series (the latter largely filmed at the Stanley, along with Jim Carrey’s “Dumb and Dumber”), brought new waves of fans to this whitewashed Georgian Colonial Revival at the edge of the Rockies.
“Welcome back, sir,” the front desk clerk greeted me as I checked in. I thought he was putting me on. I’d never been to the hotel before. Or had I? When I nervously asked if he was doing a “Shining” bit, he apologized at his mistake, explaining that I was a doppelgänger for the CEO of the hotel’s parent company.
My room was in the neighboring Aspire Hotel & Spa, which opened in 2016 and, as one of my tour guides explained, “too new to be haunted yet.” Disappointed, I asked whether I could move to the main hotel. It was opened in 1909 by F.O. Stanley (inventor, with his brother, of the Stanley Steamer automobile, one of which sits in the lobby), and featured an original Otis elevator, large fireplaces, old framed photos, and — according to the hotel’s many tours — ghosts.
As the clerk sought options on the computer, a young girl with long hair approached me. Unsolicited, she said, “You don’t want to be on the fourth floor. That’s where the children are. Ghost children.” Her cousin once stayed on that floor, she explained, and felt “someone,” unseen, sitting next to her on her bed. While the clerk had me sign for the upcharge for my new room, the girl disappeared as quietly as she had come.
Be careful what you wish for. My room on the third floor — below the ghost kids and above Room 217 — was not so much haunted as assaulted by sounds from a loud construction site outside. Acquired last year by a public-private partnership, the hotel is undergoing an expansion to include a film center with a horror-themed museum inside.
Seems like, well, overkill. There are already frequent ghost tours (“No one was murdered here,” my guide said, “but people did die here of natural causes.”) and a resident séance facilitator.
Though not a single second of Kubrick’s film was shot in Colorado, the “Shining” tour ends inside the restored caretaker’s cottage with a recreation of the movie bathroom of Room 237, as well as a poor rendition of the Torrance bedroom, and the bedroom and bathroom (not even seen in the movie) for the murdered twin girls. An illuminated safe holds one of the movie prop axes used by Nicholson.
It’s an ironic feature given that the tour explains how King vehemently disliked the Kubrick adaptation — despite being one of its screenwriters. It wasn’t just because the film differs from the novel in a few significant ways, but because of Nicholson’s portrayal. When he wrote the novel, King had a drinking problem, struggled with writer’s block, was teaching to make ends meet, and his marriage was in trouble. The character Jack Torrance is essentially modeled after the author, and King objected to how instantly menacing Nicholson’s version was.
And so, when the author was able to re-secure the film rights to his novel, he took the opportunity to produce a three-part mini-series starring Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay, that is very faithful to the novel. It aired on ABC in 1997 and can now be found on streaming services, including for free on Tubi.
My separate 10 a.m. hotel history tour (in addition to the Shining and history tours, there’s another just on ghosts) reached Room 217 at checkout time, as its guests were leaving. They generously invited the dozen or so of us to take a look. It was a well-appointed room, with a small horror-heavy library and a bust of King above the wardrobe. “Just a few noises,” the father of the family said when someone asked if they’d had any ghost sightings.
Our guide showed us pictures on her iPhone of apparitions shot by previous visitors on Stanley tours. One picture, taken at the top of the stairs next to the front desk, featured a young girl with long hair that reminded me of someone I’d met earlier.
As for how it stacks up against the Timberline on the “Shining” scale, the Stanley gets points for the origin story, the ghost sightings, the movie prop axe, and even half a point for an anemic hedge maze planted out front in 2015. But it’s too commercially exploitative to be scary. The gift shop sells travel coffee mugs and flasks emblazoned with a red children’s scrawl of “Redrum.”
It also doesn’t feel isolated in the least. From the hotel you can walk to many of the charming spots in the small, picturesque mountain town of Estes Park. At the Timberline in Oregon, I was compelled to enjoy all my meals on the property to avoid a long drive. From the Stanley, I popped out for a run along Lake Estes and through a small herd of elk, and to a breakfast and lunch spot with mountain views called the Bird’s Nest, a lovely coffeeshop called Inkwell & Brew, and The Hive at Estes Park Brewery where I enjoyed their “Shining”-branded ale.
On my second night, in the main building, I went to bed early and experienced no spectral visits. But I set my alarm for 4 a.m., made a cup of coffee to take with me and tiptoed out of my room for a self-guided tour of the hotel at that lifeless hour. I was looking and listening for who-knows-what in my flannel PJ pants and bare feet, trying to freak myself out.
And found … nothing even remotely spooky about it, even while peering into the séance room on the second floor. But it occurred to me that my footsteps on the creaky wood floors may have disturbed light sleeping guests. I may, in fact, be the ghost they swear they heard outside their room, at around 4 a.m., accompanied by a distinct smell of coffee.
The Ahwahnee Hotel: The Recreating
As fun as Timberline Lodge and the Stanley Hotel are, for very different reasons, you may want to make two more stops to recreate the Torrance family’s cinematic “Shining” tour.
The epic drive toward foreboding snow-capped peaks that Jack, Wendy and little Danny take in the film, you have to go to Glacier National Park in Montana and take the Going-to-the-Sun Road.
And if you want to feel like you’re inside the Overlook, note that the soundstages where “The Shining” was primarily filmed were actually a very close recreation of interior spaces of a third hotel: the grand, historic Ahwahnee Hotel in California’s Yosemite National Park, built in 1927 and where Stanley Kubrick once stayed.
The Ahwahnee’s Grand Lounge is nearly identical, down to the round chandeliers, to the film’s Colorado Lounge which Jack takes over as his writing room. The elevators are likewise similar (though the Ahwahnee’s don’t gush gallons of blood). If your goal is to grab a fireman’s axe and make your Instagram video while sporting a limp and hoarsely calling out “Danny, I’m coming!” Ahwahnee is the place to do it.
Appropriately enough, the Ahwahnee and Timberline Lodge were both designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, the same architect influencing the interior and exteriors of Kubrick’s film, long after his death.
“The Shining” is a pastiche of visions. King, Kubrick, Stanley and Underwood possessed us with a story and place that haunts us more than 40 years after the film adaptation and 50 years after the novelist woke from a nightmare in the hotel suite that now bears his name. And you can book a room in that story.
But, if you want to stay where King did, plan ahead. The Timberline’s ask that Kubrick change the number of Room 217, lest guests be afraid to stay there, turns out to have been a shortsighted business decision for the Oregon hotel. The Stanley’s Room 217 in Colorado books up as much as a year in advance.
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