Room 217: The Night Stephen King Checked In and Never Really Left

In the fall of 1974, Stephen and Tabitha King checked into The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. They were almost the only guests. The season was ending. The staff were preparing to close the hotel for winter.

That night, Stephen King had a dream. He was in the hotel with his young son. His son was being chased through the corridors. And the one chasing him was King himself — holding a weapon, screaming his son's name.

He woke up in a cold sweat, walked to the window, and lit a cigarette. By the time he finished it, he had the entire outline of The Shining in his head.

But the dream wasn't the only thing that happened that night.

📋 Location Details

Location333 E Wonderview Ave, Estes Park, CO 80517

Built1909, by Freelan Oscar Stanley

Most Haunted RoomRoom 217 (King's room), Room 418

Reported ActivitySince 1911 — over 100 years of sightings

Still OperatingYes — ghost tours run nightly

The Stanley Hotel

Freelan Oscar Stanley built the hotel in 1909 after his doctor told him the dry mountain air of Colorado might extend his life. Stanley had tuberculosis. He was not expected to survive. He lived to 91, and the hotel he built outlasted almost everyone who ever stayed in it.

From the beginning, guests reported strange things. Doors opening by themselves. Piano music from the empty ballroom in the middle of the night. Children's laughter in hallways where no children were staying.

The hotel's history is long enough that the strange events are no longer surprising — they are expected. The staff speak about the ghosts the way other hotel staff speak about the view.

Room 217

Room 217 is the most requested room in the hotel. There is always a waiting list. Guests book it months in advance specifically because of what has been reported there — not in spite of it.

📖 Documented Reports — Room 217

What Guests Have Experienced

Luggage unpacked and neatly arranged while guests were at dinner — with no staff having entered the room
The sensation of someone sitting on the edge of the bed at night
Lights turning on and off independently of the switch
The smell of roses with no source — consistent across dozens of accounts
A woman in Victorian dress seen standing at the foot of the bed, gone when the light is turned on
Children's voices directly outside the door, with no children on the floor

The ghost most commonly associated with Room 217 is Elizabeth Wilson, the hotel's head housekeeper for decades in the early 1900s. In 1911, a gas leak caused an explosion in the room. Wilson was badly injured but survived. She worked at the hotel until her death.

Those who have researched the room's history note that Wilson was known for her obsessive attention to detail — she would unpack guests' luggage, lay out their clothes, and arrange their belongings with precise care. The unpacked luggage reports are the most consistent anomaly associated with Room 217.

"I woke up at 2am and my suitcase was open on the floor. Everything had been neatly folded and placed on the chair beside the dresser. My wife was asleep. The door was locked from the inside. I hadn't unpacked anything."

— TripAdvisor review, Room 217, 2022

The Children

The fourth floor is considered the most active part of the hotel. Room 418, in particular, has a history that staff are reluctant to discuss in detail.

In the early days of the hotel, children of staff members would play in the upper corridors while their parents worked. Some of those children died young — tuberculosis, accidents, the ordinary tragedies of the early 20th century.

The laughter guests report is described consistently as playful. Not frightening in tone. Just present, in corridors where no children are staying, at hours when no child would be awake.

The night King heard it

King has spoken about his stay in interviews. He confirmed that he was woken in the night by sounds he could not explain — sounds that were not his wife, not the wind, not the building settling. He has been careful not to make specific claims. But he has also never dismissed what he heard.

"The hotel is a beautiful Victorian place with a reputation. I was glad of the reputation. It put me in exactly the right state of mind."

— Stephen King, interview on The Shining, 1977

The Ballroom

The Stanley's ballroom is reported to be active independently of the guest rooms. Staff who close the ballroom at night have returned in the morning to find chairs rearranged, tables moved, and on several occasions, the grand piano keys depressed as if mid-performance — still warm to the touch.

The ballroom piano has been tested by technicians multiple times. No mechanical fault has been found. The piano does not play by itself under normal conditions. Under Stanley Hotel conditions, apparently, it does.

⚠ Note for visitors: The hotel runs official ghost tours nightly. Staff are trained and knowledgeable. However, several guests on self-guided explorations of the upper floors after midnight have reported becoming briefly disoriented — unable to find stairs or elevators they had used minutes before. The hotel advises guests not to explore the upper floors alone after 1am.

Has Anyone Debunked It?

The Stanley Hotel has been investigated by multiple paranormal research teams, including crews for television documentaries. The results are consistent: anomalous electromagnetic readings on the fourth floor, audio recordings that capture sounds with no identifiable source, and temperature fluctuations in Room 217 that do not correspond to the building's HVAC system.

None of this constitutes proof. All of it is unexplained.

The hotel itself does not claim the building is haunted. They describe it, carefully, as having "a rich and active history." The guests who return year after year to stay in Room 217 have formed their own conclusion.

Visit The Stanley

Room 217 books out months in advance. Ghost tours run nightly at 9pm and 10pm. The hotel is open year-round, though the surrounding roads can close in winter.

Book Room 217 →