Tag: Michigan Hotels
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Detroit May Get Boutique Hotel Made From Old Cargo Containers
Earth Day has come and gone, and we've seen our fair share of odd hotels, so this one shouldn't really ring our bell that much. But we kind of love it because its innovative in a city that is close to our heart--Detroit. And anything that we see that's about bringing positive light to the city, we're 'bout it.
The latest venture (besides the firehouse-turned hotel) comes from a company called Collision Works. In partnership with an organization called Kickstarter, they raised over $43K to build a 36-room boutique hotel made from cargo containers.
Yeah, that was the part that threw us off, too.
But these recycled vessels are apparently made of sturdy stock and perfect for what is being called "Cargotecture". Collision Works plans to open the First Container on May 18, to coincide with Eastern Market’s Flower Day, when 200,000 visitors are expected to pass through the prototype space and showroom, located near Shed 5 at the corner of Russell and Wilkins Streets.
"Now is a great time to collaborate with the community to create quality programming and creative experiences around storytelling. What we learn here we will take with us to the hotel, ” said Shel Kimen, Founder and CEO of Collision Works, in a statement.
Collision Works is working with the City of Detroit to buy the lot at 1923 Division along the Dequindre Cut, where they hope the hotel will find its home.
No word yet on how much a cargo-container room will cost, but he certainly hope it errs on the affordable side. We'll definitely be keeping an eye out for this one.
[Photo: Collision Works]
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Historic Detroit Firehouse May Become Boutique Hotel
Say what you want about Detroit and its bad rap, we think it’s a seriously inventive city that won’t let hard knocks destroy its spirit and we've said just as much on our brother site, Jaunted. It’s the place that'll take an old 1929 brick firehouse and decide to turn it into a $23 million boutique hotel.
The Detroit City Council is being asked to approve a deal to sell the Hans Gehrke-designed building across from Cobo Center to developer Walter Cohen and his group, 21 Century Holdings. The price? Just $1.25 million. That’s cheaper than a Brooklyn condo, to give you some perspective.
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Up at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel: Afternoon Tea for All
How many US hotels do you know that've reached 125 years of business? Well, The Grand Hotel of Michigan's Mackinac Island is one of 'em, as well as being one of the last surviving wooden construction hotels. Its history is long and tumultuous, but its summers are sunny. This week, we'll take a look around the Victorian property and the features and amenities that have made it a top seasonal destination for the last century-and-a-quarter.
Today: Afternoon Tea at The Grand Hotel
We may have spent nearly all week showing you the nooks and crannies that guests may enjoy at the 125-year-old Grand Hotel, but there is one very large way they welcome non-guests: with traditional afternoon tea.
Mackinac Island has its share of daytrippers and budget travelers just as it has the luxury and season-long visitors. Paying $400/night for the Grand isn't always feasible; for some it's a dream stay to work towards, but in the meantime there's always tea. The Grand Hotel charges non-guests $10 per person and enforces a basic dress code to enter the building, to prevent the place being overrun. While you're there, afternoon tea is only $25 per person (compare to $30+ in Chicago and $36+ in New York).
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Up at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel: The Esther Williams Swimming Pool Endures
How many US hotels do you know that've reached 125 years of business? Well, The Grand Hotel of Michigan's Mackinac Island is one of 'em, as well as being one of the last surviving wooden construction hotels. Its history is long and tumultuous, but its summers are sunny. This week, we'll take a look around the Victorian property and the features and amenities that have made it a top seasonal destination for the last century-and-a-quarter.
Today: The grounds of The Grand Hotel
There's an excellent story that The Grand's historian, Bob Tagatz, tells. Hearing him deliver it is, naturally, leaps and bounds better than reading it here from us, but we're going to share it anyway.
The Grand Hotel has always been known for offering activities to fill those summer days spent lounging on the 600-foot-long porch (largest porch in the world, they claim). Today, those activities include croquet and bocce on the lawn, vintage baseball games, weekends dedicated to jazz or ballroom dancing and, always, live music. Rewind to 100 years ago—or 125. Seasonal resorts competed to draw the summer crowds by varying their entertainment, and The Grand had to keep up.
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Beach Town Surprise at Lake Michigan's Harbor Lights Resort
Kite flying and beach views from our room at Harbor Lights Resort
Traveling through Michigan’s beach towns last week, we were looking for something special, a beach hotel that was out of the out ordinary. Maybe it was for lack of an ocean, though Lake Michigan is so vast and impressive that it’s easy to be fooled. But we wanted a hotel with a little magic, a lot of sand and all the right amenities.
Pulling into Harbor Lights Resort right in lesser-known Frankfort, Michigan, we had a feeling this was the place. It wasn’t that anything was wildly impressive about the exterior of Harbor Lights, though it is a pretty complex with shades of dark gray and white. It was more that there was something about the place itself.
We often talk about tangible hotel amenities, but this hotel was all about the atmosphere. Harbor Lights is located at the end of Frankfort's main drag right on the beach, and though we were only in the parking lot and couldn’t yet see the water, we spied the tip of a lighthouse, the sun going down and sand on the walkways. You could hear the gulls and occasional motorized watercraft, but also the quiet din of a secluded beach. It was all the magic we needed... and we weren't even in our room yet.
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Up at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel: Dining and Drinking
How many US hotels do you know that've reached 125 years of business? Well, The Grand Hotel of Michigan's Mackinac Island is one of 'em, as well as being one of the last surviving wooden construction hotels. Its history is long and tumultuous, but its summers are sunny. This week, we'll take a look around the Victorian property and the features and amenities that have made it a top seasonal destination for the last century-and-a-quarter.
Today: The restaurants, bars and food at The Grand Hotel
There are signs next to the elevators, notes in the daily schedule and reminders on the lobby's bulletin board. "Seven ways to lunch," they say. "Cocktail of the day." It quickly becomes apparent that dining at The Grand Hotel—whether it's petit fours with afternoon tea or the 5-course formal dinner—is an integral part of The Grand experience.
Despite the variety of dining and drinking venues (more than you could experience with just a 2-night stay), it's actually not that difficult to enjoy several, since the majority of the room packages at The Grand are Full American Plan, meaning your breakfast, lunch and dinner and some gratuities are included.
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Up at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel: Inside a Room
How many US hotels do you know that've reached 125 years of business? Well, The Grand Hotel of Michigan's Mackinac Island is one of 'em, as well as being one of the last surviving wooden construction hotels. Its history is long and tumultuous, but its summers are sunny. This week, we'll take a look around the Victorian property and the features and amenities that have made it a top seasonal destination for the last century-and-a-quarter.
Today: Inside a regular room at The Grand
No two rooms of the 385 are alike at The Grand Hotel. Many hotels make this claim by changing the artwork or bedding but, at The Grand, the differences are substantial and noteworthy: custom wallpapers (264 specially designed for The Grand), custom colors (22 specially mixed colors), custom furniture (some taken from estates owned by the likes of Joan Crawford) and the banning of the color beige across the board. These are the opposite of the cookie-cutter, corporate hotel room; they are the vision of interior designer Carlton Varney, protégé of Dorothy Draper and infamous fiend for color and prints.
We checked into Room 484 on the top floor of the building, with a view down the main street connecting the hotel to town and the harbor. This being our first visit to the hotel, our initial room reaction was one of "hmm, okay this is interesting. We shall see." It was very feminine, very pretty and very...grand.
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Up at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel: Getting There
How many US hotels do you know that've reached 125 years of business? Well, The Grand Hotel of Michigan's Mackinac Island is one of 'em, as well as being one of the last surviving wooden construction hotels. Its history is long and tumultuous, but its summers are sunny. This week, we'll take a look around the Victorian property and the features and amenities that have made it a top seasonal destination for the last century-and-a-quarter.
Today: Getting to The Grand Hotel
In the United States, there are the Great Lakes. In the Great Lakes, there is an island. On this island—Mackinac Island—there is a hotel. And at this hotel there is a fleet of carriages. To get to the airport, you must take a carriage. To get to the ferry, you must take a carriage. There are no cars on Mackinac Island, but there are these horse-drawn carriages of The Grand Hotel.
Now that we've already detailed how exactly to reach Mackinac Island, it's time to make that final mile up to the historical hotel and its white columned porch, which holds that title of "longest porch in the world." Grabbing a "taxi" at the ferry docks means hopping in a carriage, but guests of The Grand have the varnished wood ones complete with driver in top hat and finery.
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Unwrapping Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel on Its 125th Birthday
A look inside Grand Hotel's new horse and carriage stable on opening day
We’ve all seen Grand Hotel’s striking front porch photo, the world’s largest at 600 feet. Set against the giant white wood-framed hotel, the blue waters of car-less Mackinac Island, the bursts of red geraniums, this famous porch gets lots of love and for good reason; the lofty, wrap-around water views are remarkable from here.
Looking Beyond the Front Porch
We just so happen to be rocking a chair on the porch right now as we’re here celebrating the hotel’s 125th anniversary, and the views really are quite outstanding.
But so are the views inside this giant treasure chest of a hotel. And with so many special events happening here through the weekend (Tuesday marked the Grand Hotel’s official 125th birthday) we can’t imagine a better time to pop off the lid and look around inside.
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Care For Some Fresh Batali with Your Michigan B&B?
Last week, guests of Chateau Chantal, a winery and 11-room B&B, may have believed they'd sampled one too many glasses of Pinot Grigio. How else to explain the stout, pony-tailed dude sporting both neon orange Crocs and socks that suddenly appeared?
Was it some weird garden gnome sent to overlook the 65-acre estate founded by a former Catholic priest and nun (who eventually married!)? No, it was none other than Mario Batali, an actual neighbor of the European-style Chateau.
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More Changes at Ritz-Carlton as They Drop Dearborn Hotel
As of June 2, there will no longer be a Ritz-Carlton in the state of Michigan. Yesterday, it was announced that the Ritz-Carlton Dearborn would be closing moving out on June 2. As is often the case, the bad economy was to blame. The Detroit Free Press reports:
The Ritz-Carlton Dearborn has been sold to an investment group and will be managed by Greenwood Hospitality Group, a hotel investment and management company. As of June 2, it will no longer be a Ritz-Carlton, said Vivian Deuschl, a Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman.
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Oktoberfest Hotels :: Celebrate Oktoberfest in Michigan's Little Bavaria
If you're reading this, chances are pretty high you're not in Munich, the world's holiest of Oktoberfest meccas (but by all means, correct us in the comments if we're mistaken). Because if you were in Munich, we hope you'd be perfecting your beer stein-pounding or last-minute Dirndl shopping for Saturday, when the festivities get underway.
But for the rest of us beer-lovin' brethren, Middle America has an incredible alternative: Frankenmuth, Michigan, the first German Parliament-sanctioned Oktoberfest location outside of Munich. "Little Bavaria" holds its annual fest today through Sept. 21.
