Mackinac Island Grand Hotel
— the longest porch in the world, looking south.
Not only on a wall.
Mackinac Island Grand Hotel, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“A white Victorian hotel on the West Bluff of Mackinac Island, opened in July 1887. The front porch runs 660 feet along the south facade, said to be the longest in the world, lined with rocking chairs and geraniums in red planters. The hotel sits about 200 feet above the Straits of Mackinac. No cars have driven its drive in over a century. Guests arrive by carriage from the ferry docks.
The place, in three passes.
The Grand Hotel sits on the West Bluff of Mackinac Island, about 200 feet above Lake Huron and the Straits of Mackinac. It was opened in July 1887 by a consortium of railroads and a Great Lakes steamship company to draw rail and steamer traffic to the island. The wooden frame structure was built in about ninety days. Today the hotel has 397 guest rooms, no two decorated alike, and has been operated by the Musser family since 1933. It is a National Historic Landmark, designated in 1989.
Construction began in spring 1887, and the hotel opened on July 10 of the same year. The 660-foot front porch, long claimed as the world's longest, was added in stages. Mark Twain spoke at the hotel in 1895. The 1980 film Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour was shot largely on the property and brought a wave of returning visitors that still arrives each October for the annual Somewhere in Time weekend. Five US presidents have been guests over the hotel's history.
The hotel is open seasonally, from early May through late October. A daytime pass is required for non-guests to walk the porch and grounds. In the evening, men wear coats and ties and women wear dresses or pantsuits after 6:30 pm. No automobiles have run on Mackinac Island since 1898, so guests arrive at the ferry docks and take horse-drawn carriages up to the front entrance. Lunch on the porch and afternoon tea in the Parlor are both long-standing traditions on the island.
