A friend posted some pics on Facebook of a sprawling, old Adirondack lodge. “All to ourselves,” she wrote. “Feels a bit like The Shining, to be honest.”

She was, of course, referring to the 1977 novel by Stephen King that was later turned into a movie by Stanley Kubrick. Jack Nicholson played Jack Torrance, a writer and recovering alcoholic hired to be the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Jack’s young son Danny’s psychic visions reveal the hotel’s horrifying past — right before Danny, his mother, played by Shelley Duvall, and Jack are snowed in for the winter.

For those who’ve seen or read The Shining, all it takes is a glimpse down an empty hotel hallway to immediately conjure up visions of REDRUM, creepy twins and blood-gushing elevators. As Stephen King wrote, “Hotels are superstitious places. No thirteenth floor or room thirteen, no mirrors on the back of the door you come in through, stuff like that.”

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My Facebook friend posted a few pics of the lodge’s interior to dramatize her point. There was the long, shadowy corridor. The coffered-ceilinged lobby filled with massive leather chairs and an unattended chess game. The dining table surrounded by empty chairs. All that was missing was Jack’s typewriter and the stack of pages from his “manuscript.”

All work and no play makes Jack — and the rest of us — anxious AF. Especially in a place like this, where no one can hear you scream.

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I first read The Shining when I was a newly minted teen. Not long after that, my family and I took a winter vacation at a historic hotel in Old Forge, New York. We were the only guests, along with my parents’ friends, who owned the place at the time, and their kids.

Built in 1935, the Hollywood Hills Hotel billed itself as the “largest log cabin structure in the U.S.” A brochure from the time showcases its rustic interior, complete with a dark, cobbled tap room beneath the lobby that immediately brought to mind the ominous bar scene from The Shining. I vividly recall walking — or rather, running — down the dark hallways at night, pretending not to be panicked that I might suddenly come face to face with an ax-wielding madman or identical twins in blue dresses wondering if I wanted to play.

I had the same scary sensation when I first spotted the Chateau Aprés, a classic 1960s ski lodge on Norfolk Avenue in Park City. According to the hotel’s website, the Chateau Aprés was built in 1964, just as the Park City Ski Area was opening. Ed Hosenfeld, who was married to the daughter of the original owners, eventually took the hotel over and his oldest son, Jason, currently runs the place.

I’d passed the Chateau Aprés dozens of times when taking my dog Riley to the Library Dog Park. I’d never been inside it, but my imagination conjured up all kinds of Stephen King vibes. All dark pine and forest-green trim, I could swear, I never saw anyone go in or come out. It always put me in mind of the Overlook by way of the Hotel California: You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.

That is, until one autumn night a couple of years ago. I was walking across the library field with a man I’d just started dating. A full, double Blood Moon hung over our heads.

As we crossed the field, we paused to take in the Chateau Aprés. I was about to make a sarcastic comment about the Overlook when the man whispered that it looked like a mirage out of a Wes Anderson movie. I gazed over at the lodge and realized he was right. Hundreds of tiny, twinkling lights framed the eaves; its windows glowed with golden warmth. In that moment, I could envision not Jack Torrance with an ax, but Owen Wilson with a hot toddy, stepping through the door in a Norwegian sweater and tight, black ski pants. Instead of horror, I was filled with a sense of wonder. A different kind of shine.

Stephen King wrote, “We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives.”

The man kissed me for the first time. Under the light of the Blood Moon. In the glow of the Wes Anderson hotel. It was a perfect moment. And I thought to myself, maybe when you open your heart and let go of fear, sometimes — maybe every time — you let in some magic instead.