20 Things You Didn't Know About The Shining
4. Room 237 Doesn't Exist
The Shining, while using sound stages like other Hollywood projects for certain scenes, for the most part shot on location at an actual big spooky hotel. Specifically the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. This was an actual hotel that had actual people staying there. As such, it would kinda suck for business if the movie name-dropped an actual room that people could stay in as the "evil room where all the REALLY bad spirits all like to hang out".
In the book, that room is room #217. But since the Timberline Lodge actually HAS a room #217, they understandably asked Kubrick to change the room number so as to not inadvertently hurt business.
So the room number was changed to the now infamous room 237, which doesn't exist in the Timberline Lodge, they had to make it up completely. This works, both for the surreal atmosphere of the movie, as well as keeping both sides of the deal happy. Kubrick got to have his movie, and the Timberline Lodge got to keep from being flooded with the ghost hunting community all demanding to stay in one of their rooms over and over.