Which hotel would you envision if you read this statement: “This location supposedly was the inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s thriller The Shining.”
If, like me, the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, popped first to mind, I would understand that. If, however, you said the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York, I’d be all, “Say what now? Where?”
Last year, I stumbled across that puzzling declaration in a Hudson Valley Magazine article about haunted places. I was recently reminded of it while watching the first two episodes of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School.
The PLL Connection
Several of the scenes in the second season have involved a creepy-looking dilapidated church. (I have a feeling we’ll keep seeing it.)
“Is it a real church,” I wondered, “or was it constructed for the show? If it’s real, where is it? And does it have any ghost stories like the places in season 1 did?”
That’s how I discovered the Hudson Valley Mag article in the first place. Last year, The List published an interview with actor Elena Goode, who plays Marjorie Olivar, Noa’s mom. (Maia Reficco stars as Noa.) One of the article’s subsections was titled “Some of the sets were actually haunted.”
She didn’t name what locations they’d filmed in that were allegedly haunted, but she mentioned feeling “an energy of unrest” in the hotel she stayed at during filming. (As well as in the town overall.) She also referenced a church she could see from her hotel room. Here’s what she said in the interview about that:
“Late one night, probably not a good idea, I start researching the history of the church, and long story short, it was built on top of over a hundred unmarked graves. The pastor would say that people wouldn’t want to work in the church past 10:00 at night, and that there was this sense of people being in there and feeling that they were being watched…”
What hotel was it? Which church? I had to track it down, but first, I needed to know where they filmed.
While Max’s reboot of Pretty Little Liars is set in Millwood, Pennsylvania, filming takes place in New York. In addition to shooting at Upriver Studios in Saugerties, they also film on-location in some Hudson Valley towns. Researching haunted hotels and churches in the Hudson Valley led me to the magazine article with The Shining reference.
Mohonk Mountain House Shining Myth
Hudson Valley One confirms which hotel really inspired Stephen King’s The Shining. It is indeed the Stanley Hotel in Colorado.
The myth stems from the fact that, like the Stanley Hotel, King has stayed at the Mohonk Mountain House. In fact, he and his family have regularly vacationed there over the years.
As for the hotel, it’s historic, grand, and isolated in mountainous terrain. It seems a fitting place for King to set one of his novels, and the one everyone knows that involves a haunted hotel is none other than The Shining. So it makes sense some might think it inspired that novel.
It doesn’t help matters when articles like “Tucked in at The Shining hotel: Watching out for Jack at Mohonk Mountain House” are published. Which the London Daily Mail did in 2013.
However, King himself settled any question. As Hudson Valley One reported, “…according to King’s official website, the Stanley was indeed the place where the book and everything that followed were born, despite fan arguments that Mohonk is a better match.”
Check-In
Have you ever heard of the Mohonk Mountain House or that some believed it inspired The Shining?
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, as well as obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of healing, to learn how she channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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