MUSEYON BOOKS Smart City Guides for Travel, History, Art and Film Lovers
The Timberline Lodge or The Overlook Hotel?
Most of the movie was shot on a British soundstage — on the largest set ever built at the time — but the sets were based on some real-life hotels. Find out these spooky places to stay … if you dare!
The Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Valley, California
The hotel of horrors is actually a hodgepodge of hotels, modeled after rooms Stanley Kubrick and production designer Roy Walker had seen in photographs. The building’s exterior was played by the Timberline Lodge, a National Landmark built — by hand — in 1937 on Mount Hood (Timberline Lodge, Oregon; 800-547-1406).
Inside some of the rooms can be traced to iconic hotels. The film’s Colorado Lounge, where Jack works is nearly identical to the lounge at the Ahwahnee Hotel (Yosemite National Park, California; 801-559-4884) in Yosemite National Park, a blend of Art Deco, American Indian and Arts and Crafts design that inspired many of the film’s interiors, including the lounge and lobby. If you book a stay at the mountain resort, you don’t have to worry about staying in the ill-fated Room 137 — it doesn’t exist. In fact, the hotel’s owners asked Kubrick use this number instead of the Room 117, like the book. It’s not the only hotel that inspired Kubrick. The red men’s room at the Overlook was modeled after a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed bathroom in Phoenix’s famed Arizona Biltmore Hotel (2400 E. Missouri Ave., Phoenix; 602-955-6600), the so-called “Jewel of the Desert.”
Though the settings in the film are strictly Kubrick, author Stephen King was inspired to write the novel by a stay at The Stanley Hotel (33 Wonderview Ave., Estes Park, Colorado; 800-976-1377) in Colorado. The Stanley shows the uncut R-rated version of Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ on a continuous loop on Channel 42 on guest room televisions, but for a really scary stay, book one of the hotel’s ghost tours.
images courtesy of the Timberline Lodge and Ahwahnee Hotel
