In the fall of 1974, writer Stephen King and his wife stopped for the night at an old hotel overlooking the city. Once among the grande dames of the west, The Stanley had fallen on hard times and was a ghost of its former, Edwardian-era self. 

Upon arriving, the Kings learned the hotel was closing for the winter and only a skeleton crew remained. Nonetheless, the couple was checked into Room 217, the Presidential Suite, as the only paying guests. 

That night, the author had a nightmare in which he saw his young son being chased down the hotel’s long, empty corridors by a predatory, possessed fire hose. He woke drenched in sweat and stepped to the balcony to smoke a cigarette. By the time he stubbed it out, he’d worked out the “bones” of what would become his third novel, and first best-seller, “The Shining.”