Iconic Horror Hotel Gets Spooky New Addition
Jennifer Billock September 14, 2015
The Stanley Hotel is trying to up the creepy factor with a new hedge maze.
Employees at the Stanley Hotel, where Stephen King stayed and was inspired to pen The Shining after a spooky dream, have always been a little disappointed that the movie wasn’t actually filmed there. But that hasn’t stopped them from trying to capitalize on the book and movie’s success with everything from an in-house psychic to ghost tours to constantly streaming The Shining on hotel televisions. One thing, though, was always missing: the iconic hedge maze from the end of the film. And finally, the Stanley can say it has one — sort of.
The property’s current owner, John Cullen, took notice of his guests’ disappointment when they noticed a hedge maze didn’t exist at the property. So to celebrate 20 years of his owning the hotel, he held a competition to design and build one.
“People kept on looking for the maze,” Cullen told The New York Times. “People want an experience. They want to reinterpret it and tell all their friends about it. And who am I to get in their way?”
The winning architect was Mairim Dallaryan Standing from New York. She was picked from 329 worldwide entries.
“I was up until 1 in the morning every day, designing and drawing and sketching and trying to make it work mathematically before I submitted it,” said Standing.
But although her design has been morphed into the hedge maze now standing at the hotel, some guests are disappointed. Cullen decided to use juniper trees that only grow to three feet tall rather than the huge bushes from the movie. Guests were looking for that scary experience and some aren’t getting it. But the shorter version also has its positive qualities—it’s architecturally beautiful, and no one can get lost in it.
[Photo: Matthew Staver, The New York Times]
