Old Hotels! Stanley and Baldpate

I like old buildings, I really do.  I think they are nifty and I am always on the look out for some ghosties.  And they are just cool.  I am a nerd for them.  I can't help it I love all the tiny little details.  I think that is what made them so much fun.  In case you forgot I spent a lot of time in old Yellowstone buildings (Lake Hotel, The Inn), and I grew up in one.  Maybe there a connection, or I just like old things.

While my parents were here we went to the Baldpate Inn and the Stanley Hotel.  They Stanley I am sure you are aware of, so i will start with Baldpate.  It is goregous.  It was built in 1917; inspired by a novel entitled The Seven Keys to Baldpate.  I am currently reading this book.  So far it is amazing and quite hilarious.  So these 7 people all think they have the only key to the Inn and they all show up at it one winter.  Comedy gold I am sure.  But I digress, the original owners of the Inn really liked it.  So they built the Inn to match the one in the book, and later the author loved it so, that he declaried it the Baldpate Inn of his story.

And the Stanley Hotel, came to fame as the inspiration to Steven Kings' The Shining.  Oh and they used the hotel in the later version of the movie.  Not the Jack Nicholson one.  It has a great history, even with out the hauntings.  FO (I think) Stanley had tuburclouis (lovely) and he was on his death bed.  He and the wife had moved to Colorado to get away from the humidity and it hadn't helped much.  His doctor sent him to Estes Park, where he was filled with a renewed sense of life and heath.  He got stronger and lived for another 40 years.

The Stanleys fell in love with Estes (can't say I blame them one bit) and decided to build a summer home there.  And then they decided to build a hotel for their friends to stay at so they could continue to entertain them.  Thus we got the Stanley.  The Stanley has been through many owners and most of them did not take care of the building as it should have.  It was very run down for years, and in that state was inspiring to King.  It also has a great haunted history.  Ghosts packing and unpacking bags, a cowboy who kisses you good night children running up and down the halls, eating candy left in rooms.