The Stanley Hotel is a 140-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, United States, about five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley, Co-founder of the Stanley Motor Carriage Company, and opened on July 4, 1909, as a resort for upper-class Easterners and a health retreat for sufferers of pulmonary tuberculosis. The hotel and its surrounding structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the hotel includes a restaurant, spa, and bed-and-breakfast; with panoramic views of Lake Estes, the Rockies, and Longs Peak. The Stanley Hotel inspired the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's 1977 bestselling novel The Shining and its 1980 film adaptation, and was a filming location for the related 1997 TV miniseries. History In 1903, the steam-powered car inventor Freelan Oscar Stanley (1849–1940) was stricken with a life-threatening resurgence of tuberculosis. The most highly recommended treatment of the day was fresh, dry air with much sunlight and a hearty diet. Therefore, like many "lungers" of his day, Stanley resolved to take the curative air of the Rocky Mountains. He and his wife Flora arrived in Denver, Colorado, in March and, in June, on the recommendation of Dr. Sherman Grant Bonney, moved to Estes Park, Colorado, for the rest of the summer. Over the season, Stanley's health improved dramatically. Impressed by the beauty of the valley and grateful for his recovery, he decided to return every year. He lived to 91, dying of a heart attack in Newton, Massachusetts, one year after his wife, in 1940. By 1907, Stanley had recovered completely. However, not content with the rustic accommodations, lazy pastimes and relaxed social scene of their new summer home, Stanley resolved to turn Estes Park into a resort town. In 1907, construction began on the Hotel Stanley, a 48-room grand hotel that catered to the class of moderately wealthy urbanites who composed the Stanleys' social circle back east as well as to consumptives seeking the healthful climate. The land was purchased in 1908 through the representatives of The 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, the Anglo-Irish peer who had originally acquired it by stretching the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862 and pre-emption rights. Between 1872 and 1884, Lord Dunraven claimed of the Estes Valley in an unsuccessful attempt to create a private hunting preserve, making him one of the largest foreign holders of