TRAVEL
GRAND G ETAWAY
Escape for a long weekend to Mackinac Island,
where the taxis are horse-drawn carriages, the
geraniums bloom by the thousand, and the views
from the Grand Hotel are the stuff of movies.
BY SUSAN LAUBACH
Thursday
"I'm retiring in September," our friend
Margaret Kappa, housekeeping consult-
ant at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel,
told us by phone. "If you want to see a
little piece of heaven on Earth, come
visit before I go."
And so we traveled to Mackinac
Island. We walked up the hill to the
Grand Hotel between white frame cot-
tages With white picket fences enclosing
gardens of geraniums, dahlias, asters, and
roses, a profusion of colors. We passed a
tiny chapel on our right, the Old Stone
Church, according to a discreet sign
announcing its scheduled services.
Soon we sighted the pillared verandah
— the world's longest—running 660 feet
across the front of the Grand Hotel. This
massive white frame structure, owned
since 1933 by the Musser family, was
built by two railroad companies in 1887
to accommodate wealthy folk who
arrived by lake steamer from Montreal,
Detroit and Chicago. The 1980 film
"Somewhere in Time," starring
Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour,
was filmed on location at the Grand
Hotel. It inspired a huge following and a
fan club that meets annually at the hotel
every October, often with Jane Seymour
in attendance.
Carleton Varney, known for his bold
stripes and floral prints in primary colors,
designed the hotel's interior spaces. The
enormous lobby, made cozy by the con-
versational groupings of wing chairs and
sofas, is carpeted in a Varney-inspired
black with the Grand's signature gerani-
um-red and green floral print. The walls
are dark green under a sky-blue ceiling.
Our room was similarly cheerful with
white wood furniture (tiny geraniums
adorn dressers and armoires), floral wall-
paper, and blue-and-white striped sofas.
Frida
We walked to the
village, which was lively with visitors in
spite of the cool and spritzy weather. We
stopped into a fine gift shop, Le Galerie,
and spoke with its owner, retired music
and math teacher Buzz Waggoner, about
his life on the island. "Carolyn and I
have had the shop for 21 years," he told
us. "We go back to Wyandotte for the
winters, although there is plenty to do
here off-season — bridge clubs, book
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