Estes Park, Colorado, has long been known as the place where novelist Stephen King got the idea to write The Shining. Since fiber broadband came to the Estes Park area in 2019, the remote community of 11,000 has other claims to fame, too. Among other things, it has become a hub for filmmaker workshops and is now the home of a “frozen dead guy.”
Telecompetitor talked to John Cullen, president of Grand Heritage Hotel Group, about how high-speed broadband has impacted his business.
Grand Heritage owns historic hotels nationwide. Thirty years ago, the company acquired The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park – the hotel that inspired The Shining book and movie. Recently, the hotel was sold to the state of Colorado, with Grand Heritage continuing as the developer of the property.
Thanks to high-speed broadband, the hotel is now home to filmmaker workshops conducted by The Sundance Institute, interactive horror experiences and a cryonics museum with a “frozen dead guy.”
As Cullen put it, Estes Park offers “the best of both worlds — it’s a secluded area with modern technology that you normally wouldn’t find outside an urban area.”
The high-speed broadband in Estes Park was deployed by Trailblazer, a municipal network that was created in the late 2010s to bring fiber broadband to the area served by local utility Light & Power. Trailblazer connected its first broadband customer in 2019.
The Stanley Hotel
The Stanley Hotel embraced the new Trailblazer Broadband service in a big way, opting to make 10 Gbps connections available to each of 50 rooms in the hotel. This got the attention of the Sundance Institute, which has begun holding its Directors’ Labs at the hotel. The program gives aspiring filmmakers the ability to bring their screenplays to life by working with seasoned professionals.
“They film during the day and edit at night,” said Cullen. “The ability to upload an entire day’s filming to editing studios that are based in Burbank and New York and Amsterdam is everything.”
The Stanley Hotel operations also include condos, which have increased in value since they were connected to 10 Gbps service. Occupancy is up 20% — and during the COVID pandemic, all units were occupied because people liked the ability to work from home.
The Frozen Dead Guy
For several years, The Stanley Hotel has also been home to “the frozen dead guy” and the International Cryonics Museum operated by cryonics firm Alcor.
Cryonics is a subset of cryogenics.
The idea behind cryogenics is to use low temperatures to preserve genetic material. Some enthusiasts hope that at some point in the future, science will advance to the point that a dead body can be brought to life again. That field of study is known as cryonics.
In cryonics, the term “dead body” isn’t used. Instead, those who have been frozen are referred to as “patients,” Cullen explained.
When a cryonics devotee, now known as “the frozen dead guy,” passed away in 1989, his family arranged to have him preserved. After high-speed broadband became available at The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, the frozen dead guy was moved to the hotel’s icehouse. The high-speed broadband gave those responsible the confidence that the proper environment would be maintained.
“Where technology came into play is they have to have multiple redundancy backups,” said Cullen. “And having a dedicated Trailblazer line, they can monitor 27 stats, including security and CO2 levels and others.” The “frozen dead guy” has become so well known locally that there is even a festival named after him, which Cullen bought several years ago, and which has seen strong attendance.
The Stanley Hotel has also partnered with Blumhouse Productions on interactive horror experiences in Colorado that also rely on high-speed broadband.
Future plans for The Stanley Hotel include a $78 million theater and a $60 million room expansion.
Beyond The Stanley Hotel
While The Stanley Hotel may be the highest-profile broadband success story in Estes Park, there are others as well. Kim Smith, Trailblazer Broadband customer experience manager, shared several other Estes Park broadband success stories:
- Other hotels also have seen occupancy increases.
- A local hospital attracted UCHealth to take over the community facility, ensuring long-term access to top-tier medical service.
- Estes Park also has a new co-working space, giving local freelancers, remote workers, and business travelers a fully equipped office environment.
- Trailblazer Broadband supports area technological advances such as automated entry systems at Rocky Mountain National Park. When completed, the systems are expected to streamline visitor access and improve local traffic flow.
The Estes Park fiber broadband network is 80% complete. It serves 4,650 clients, including more than 300 local businesses and representing 60% of businesses in the area.
Other information about Colorado broadband, including links to state funding resources and state-specific Telecompetitor coverage, can be found on the Telecompetitor Broadband Nation webpage for the state.
