Historic hotel and coastal resort on Mackinac Island and constructed in the late 19th century, the facility advertises itself as having the world's largest porch
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The Grand Hotel is a historic hotel and coastal resort on Mackinac Island. Constructed in the late 19th century, the facility advertises itself as having the world's largest porch. The Grand Hotel is well known for a number of notable visitors, including five U.S. presidents, inventor Thomas Edison, and author Mark Twain.
Mackinac Island National Park became the second National Park in the United States in 1875 (before becoming a Michigan State park in 1895). This led to a large increase in visitors to the island. In 1886, the Michigan Central Railroad, Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, and Detroit and Cleveland Steamship Navigation Company formed the Mackinac Island Hotel Company. The group purchased the land on which the hotel was built and construction began, based upon the design by Detroit architects Mason and Rice. When it opened the following year, the hotel was advertised to Chicago, Erie, Montreal and Detroit residents as a summer retreat for vacationers who arrived by lake steamer and by rail from across the continent. The hotel opened on July 10, 1887, and took a mere 93 days to complete. At its opening, nightly rates at the hotel ranged from $3 to $5 a night (equivalent to $86.41-144.02 in 2020).
In 1957, the Grand Hotel was designated a State Historic Building. In 1972, the hotel was named to the National Register of Historic Places, and on June 29, 1989, the hotel was made a National Historic Landmark.
Grand Hotel's front porch is the longest in the world at some 660 feet (200 m) in length, overlooking a vast Tea Garden and the resort-scale Esther Williams swimming pool.
U.S. Presidents Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton have visited the hotel. The hotel also hosted the first public demonstration of Thomas Edison's phonograph on the porch, as well as regular demonstrations of Edison's other new inventions. Mark Twain also made this a regular location on his speaking tours in the Midwest.
Conde Nast Traveler "Gold Lists" the hotel as one of the "Best Places to Stay in the Whole World" and Travel + Leisure magazine's lists it as among the "Top 100 Hotels in the World." The Wine Spectator noted the Grand Hotel with an "Award of Excellence" and it was included in Gourmet magazine's "Top 25 Hotels in the World" list. The American Automobile Association (AAA) rates the facilities as a four-diamond resort and in 2009 named the Grand Hotel one of the top 10 U.S. historic hotels.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Grand Hotel (Mackinac Island)", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
