Travel Feature Podcast Voiceover - Voices of Mackinac Island
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Welcome to the official Mackinaw Island podcast celebrating the people, places and history of America's favorite freshwater destination Mackinaw Island, Michigan. Be sure to visit Mackinaw Island dot org. For more information about today's featured subject and to book your summertime getaway to Mackinaw Island. Now, here's your host, Bill Hobson. You can see it all the way from Mackinaw City, this bright white shining dream perched above the tree line on the west side of Mackinaw Island. If your plans are leading you in that direction, there's a stirring of excitement among your entire family or group. If your plans are leading you elsewhere on the island, there's a stirring of curiosity about what it's really like inside Grand Hotel today on the official Mackinaw Island podcast, we'll answer those questions in a most unique way. You'll be searching a very long time before you eventually give up trying to find someone with the knowledge, passion and humorous ability to convey what it is that makes Grand Hotel a bucket list destination for guests from around the world. I think of him as a wonderful combination of Robin Williams and Ben Stein. Perhaps that description will make more sense 25 minutes from now after you hear from Bob Taggart's, it is a pleasure to be sitting in the parlor at Grand Hotel and sitting across from a gentleman that I've gotten to know over the last 15 plus years. He is as much a fixture here as the historic front porch. Um, I don't think he's recently been renovated the front, but nobody on the face of the earth has a better working knowledge of this grand place than Bob Taggart's who serves as historian and concierge lecturer. And I believe missed your true calling in life as a stand up comedian. So luckily in your line of work these days, you get to mix in a little bit of everything, don't you? That's what makes it fun. You know, I actually was going to be a stand up comedian, but people laughed at me and I said, you know, all that college money. So, no, I've been here 22 years this year which just amazes me and it is a good mix. I, I, I love history and this is a place where you can live history and also the whole concierge thing. I was never concierge before, but I've just fallen in love with the meeting different people every day, sharing the experience. You know, I say that appreciation leads to registration. It's a great marriage. At one point in a young man's life. Does the switch get flipped where he says, I believe it's time for me to begin pouring my life into wooden structure, historic hotel studies because you're, you're deeply immersed in this. And I had to start somewhere. That statement alone just proves that I have no life. I think everybody feels better about their own life. After just hearing a person that studies turned the century vernacular wood frame hotels built by transportation companies. That is so sad. I did several things in my life and I never truly did what I really loved uh for a living and I did preservation work, start out with old theaters and architecture as such. And I'm a big car guy and I got involved in, in one of the structures connected with the first speed races in Daytona Beach, north of Daytona was the town of Ormond Ormond Hotel and they were threatening to tear it down. And all my heroes, David Dunbar Buick and Ford and Sir Malcolm Campbell stayed there so selfishly, I wanted to spend a night in this historic building. And next thing I know I spent eight years trying to save it. And in doing so, I just, I went to all the existing large hotels including Grand Hotel to see how they did it. And I was so successful that bill, they tore it down, which looks really bad on a resume. But I became an accidental expert about this. And at some point, I said, you know, I'd love to do what I really love for living for a change. And this was, this was about top of the list. So your first trip here was kind of a research trip. Yep. I was, I was here as a guest. I came to see this genre hotel which is a large wood frame hotels from transportation companies. In 1904, there was over 1200 in the United States. Two thirds built or financed by transportation companies. As were we today in the United States. There's 11 left standing. When I started studying in the early eighties, there were still 34 standing. So I basically selfishly wanted to see how they did it to see if we could do it in our hotel down there, the hotel ormond and it wasn't possible and they did tear it down. But good environmental or good environment, good historical laws were passed because of that. And it brought me here. Ultimately, when you decided, you know what I visited that place up on that island where there's no vehicles, even though I'm a car guy, which we'll get into a bit. What was it that made you think? You know, I'm going to contact the family that runs this place and just see if they have an opening or was it the other way around it? They hunt you? Oh, no, no, no, no. There was a lot of begging, a lot of begging going on. I narrowed it down to a couple of hotels. I really liked. My idea was initially was to spend a couple years and write a small book or collect information for a larger book encompassing. So I really, they didn't, they had a gentleman here that was kind of a pseudo historian at the time, didn't need a historian. And I had no, after eight years trying to save an old hotel, I had no marketable skill for an open running hotel. So I wore them down. They didn't know what to do with me. So I was the oldest fattest bellman. I carried luggage down on the docks. I typed 600 pages of historic information. And towards the end of the season, I approached the owners who didn't know who I was. Uh I, I approached Dan Musser and I says, you know, I, I put together an historical program and he goes, you can do it. He said, but you have to do it in front of the family. Have do it from my dad, my mom, the general manager. Yeah. So I, I put down luggage and I went into the one of our rooms, the Autobahn Wine Bar and it seems like everything I said, somebody had a contradiction to and I thought I was doing really poorly. And then Mr Musser who, you know, came to work for his uncle in 51. It was our chairman for 61 years said that's, that's a damn fine lecture right there. I started doing a couple of times a week published the first book the following year and they still don't know what I do, but the checks cash every two weeks, I have no idea that you started here doing heavy lifting, literally whatever they needed I did. And I snuck in at the time, there was a real strong dress code for employees. And so they showed movies in the hotel and the only way an employee could come in the hotel, I was working downtown on the docks was to dress and come to the hotel and watch the movie. So I'd come in and I watched about five minutes the movie and I snuck out and went around the hotel, mainly going over antiques and art in the hotel, learning the lay of the land. And I did that pretty much every other night until they threw me out, they threw me out at night and then I'd sneak back in the next night. And that's how I learned the interior of the hotel and the art and antiques here. You know, I've known you for about 15 or so years. The first that I've ever heard that because I always try to shoehorn our conversation into something golf related. Now you spend a lot of your time on the clock telling the story of the hotel and probably rarely telling your own story. Well, story hotel is, is much more interesting than my story as well. It really is. I mean, you know, these hotels were built in a real short period of time for America's gilded age. They were built out of wood to capitalize on this just, you know, unbridled capitalism of the period. And, and they weren't necessarily made to last. The, everybody knew that unbridled capitalism would end and it did. And very few of these were able to figure out how to make it work to adapt and evolve and thrive. And I'm so proud to say that we have, we have never closed our doors to the traveling public and 230 years through wars through has been very close. I mean, it's been on the edge twice. We were going to be torn down in our history. We have never done that and we've been known to associate with the same family since 1919 and solely by that same family for 85 years this year since 1933. And that is why we exist. You know, there's no real corporation that would come in and say, Jeez, let's invest all this money on the single most expensive per square foot building to maintain. And what we'll do is we'll close it down during the winters. We have zero income for six months. It makes a nice living for a family and over 750 employees and that's the love, the family and the people that stay here and come back here after your, it's a love for the institution. It's hard to fathom that there was a period in time where the grand hotel was under consideration for demolition. Oh, it was what was happening? Why would that be the case two times in our history? I mean, we were built as a destination for the Victorian traveler by transportation companies and it's hard to wrap your mind, wrap your mind around it. But the transportation was so profitable that you could afford to lose money on the destinations. And when we originally opened, we were a quarter of a million dollars to build in $62,000 to furnish. So in 87 we are 18 87 we had over $300,000 invested. We had to keep our room rates extremely low because these hotels were opening up weekly. The competition if you think advertising is a little shady today would mean the lies. They told these Victorians and they were romantics and they bought it and they came here. So our rates had to be low. So our rates including meals. When we opened the doors in 18 87 were 3 to $5 a night And always tell people they're about twice that now. No, they're a bit more than that. But um, so if you in our season today is six months long, we charged a little stronger rate and make a nice living back then. The whole season was two months long. It was July and August. So we invested $300,000 lost money real strongly for two months that we were open and we close the doors with zero income for the next Six months or less. Next 10 months. And again, came in the spring, just like we do today. We don't heat this hotel even today in the winter and we do thousands of dollars worth repair stock at Stafford. Thank goodness. Now, we figured out a way to turn a profit and put that profit back into the institution. When did the grand hotel become Nationally known to the point where you didn't have to be a Brazilian air to stay here where it became accessible to folks that wanted to check an item off their bucket list and actually do it. Well, the like I said, we were built for mainly the Children of the movers, shakers, robber barons of the gilded age period, the privilege to come and enjoy their privileges. The majority guest stayed the whole season. Most people stayed two months. The record is we have one family had the same room for 14. They just left their stuff. There came back the following season would be rather sizable. Oh my God. Well, people, yeah. Well, it's fairly reasonable at the time and people didn't travel alone either. Your private railroad car was over in Mackinaw City. Your servants would be in the rooms in the back of the house. Many people left their carriages here for the winter and we paint them in Greece and they'd send horses or we would provide horses media method. But that was such a short period in our history. The long term stay, the unbridled capitalism of this period got bridled. All of a sudden, there was personal income tax. All of a sudden there was labor laws, environmental laws and, and probably the most overlooked thing is the rising of the middle class and its effect on these high end gilded age resorts, you know, a living wage was paid. Of course, I'm a car guy. So in 1913, a guy working for Henry Ford, build a model t, no way in his life, could he own that car? It was two years. So Salary to own that car. To 10 years later, the cost of the car had come down, a living wage was being paid a $5 workday initiated by Henry Ford. And now that automobile was three months salary and you bet he's going to buy that car and you bet he's gonna travel and therefore these resorts have to figure out. And it was, it was a tough thing to do that. You have to serve everybody and that's, that's continued over the years. You know, a good percentage of our business today is groups and conventions. I mean, we were laughed upon when they said, well, that's the future Grand Hotel. No, it's social guest. Long term. States, groups and conventions. Are 60 to 70% of our business today. We wouldn't exist if we didn't figure out it wasn't always easy how to make that work. It's remarkable to see how seismic shifts in the American economy can impact a place like this. They don't happen often, but there could be a huge downturn like back in oh eight, as you said, there's this change in this technical aspects of traveling called the automobile. Um, It kind of makes you wonder what comes next. It's very, what are we not seeing just yet? It's very true. But what we have done, you know, one of the best things about our places that were open six months where summer or hotel and we're closed six months and even though we have no income, this family and it really is true that own this hotel, sit down and we reassess what do we do? Well, what do we do poorly? And even it goes to the extent that if you travel during the winter, I try to do a lot of traveling. Um, you come back and the owners say, well, where did you go? And where did you stay? And what did you do well and what works and what doesn't work. So to me, the single greatest challenge in this hotel, especially as an historian perspective, but is to find a balance to find a balance of offering as many modern amenities to be competitive, your internet and social media but never forget who you are and what makes you unique and different. You always, we don't sell rooms and food. We sell a summer experience. It's not one thing we do. It's everything we do and finding that balance to me is the toughest daily basis thing to do. Don't lose who you are. What you're about being honest, genuine, authentic experience, but still be competitive in the market as a hotel. I would love to have that capsulize that statement, that philosophy capsulized across all industries. How could you imagine? Could you imagine how much more pleasant air travel if that mentality was mindset doesn't translate the evolution. You know, I'm older than you are. But I remember we dressed when we flew somewhere. You it was a big event to dress up and back your luggage and your luggage looked a little seedy. You're embarrassed, you had to get a better look at, you know, so I don't know, it's out there and, and part of what I do here in my opinion is uh educate the next generation as much as you know, I love talking about the past and people relate to things that have here and from the depression and movies and things. But the kids, that's the future of this hotel. That's my retirement program. Those kids in their high tech world have to figure out what we offer here. That balance of technology and tradition still has value in the world today. And that, to me is one of my greatest challenge of making this place work. One of the points of education that I hope you'll share with those, those kids. And those tour groups is the phrase you used a few minutes ago of Robber Barons. Yeah, I want to know what that is because I think I might have wanted to be one actually, Rob something. Well, you know, Robert Barons, and that's a very tough term and it's a very delicate term because these people changed the face of the United States and they were both heroes for changing the face of the United States by harnessing the incredible turn of the century technology, especially the second industrial revolution of, of science and, and steam and steel and manufacturing. By the same token, there kind of villains, you know, pollution, they put people out of work, the working conditions initially were horrible and it's because they could get away with it. So they're heroes and villains. So Robber Barons changed the face of the United States from being very modest agriculture. We traded lands in a very short period of time. The economy just exploded because of these people at some point, they kind of had to be reined in. I mean, that's when the antitrust laws and came because they were becoming way too powerful and it was too much of a good of a few and not the people to try to average thing out. It's very interesting when you study that and then you look at the United Today, very similar things are happening and the angst they protested in different ways, but it is still there. So you have this special place where those who might fall under that description will come and stay. But now, so will those who are helping Mr Ford make his vehicle? Of course, and, and all points in between. It's a pretty unique destination that can welcome every level of the economy. That's our goal to be honest with, you know, people I do tourists, the hotel regularly and people want to know about the President's, which you have had five state here or celebrities and we have those, but it is a minimal part of the people that come here. So when we train employees, I say if you have a five star traveler come here, our goal is to show that some of the inconveniences of coming to Mackinaw Island Um are outweighed so much by the uniqueness of the experience, the totalitarian of the experience. And that's important to me. But you know, what's more important to me is the 95 other percent that come here that may be intimidated by this or think they can't afford this or a bunch of snobs up here. Let me tell you the family that owns this hotel or the most down to earth people you will ever meet. I mean that so, you know, if people are intimate. Buy something to me. You know, someone says, geez, I don't know what fork to use in the dining room, whatever gets into your mouth. That is the correct fork, you know, make them feel good about it. Were an elegant place. But we're a summer resort and we never take ourselves too seriously. That's what we're about for both our convention travelers and our social travelers. Elegant. Don't take yourself too seriously. It's about fun. It's about summer. Um, I have never watched somewhere in time. Yeah, I've tried three minutes of it but many have many love it several years ago. One of our first visits here, my wife and I were given that room somewhere in time. Sweet here. And to me it was nice room, didn't mean anything beyond that. We hadn't even yet unpacked our, our luggage and there was a knock on the door like who in the world would. So I go open the door and there's five or six old little old ladies out in the hallway and they're trying to look around me. And I said it's just gonna help you. Would you mind if we came in and took some pictures? Which to me meant odd things at the moment because I don't know what you're in the room. And so we stepped out and let them come in and take their pictures. But I say all that because even though I, I'm not a huge five star reviewer of that particular film. It was a game changer for Grand Hotel, wasn't it? It was huge. You know, we are the biggest game change. We had uh Esther Williams film shot here in 47 released in 49 this time for keeps. So when someone time came along, I mean, it wasn't even written for us. It was written for the Del Coronado. The book was called Bid Time Return and the movie company MGM shot and they went out and they did the setup, they, they did the setup for the filming and they needed to transform from 1979 back to 1912. And have you ever been out to Del Coronado? It's right next to a big military base and planes are landing and car alarms are going off and there's phone lines and they said, geez, there's no big giant old wood frame resort where they don't have cars and we're like, oh, pick us, pick us, you know. And so they came, we had a full season booked. We couldn't even put them up in the hotel. We put them up in another resort and brought them back and forth every day. About two o'clock in the morning, we changed the resort into about 1912. We had an unwritten policy if anybody wanted their money back, you know, because it was disruptive. We give it to him. Only two people did in my theories because all the rest of ended up as extras in the movie. You know, I weekly people come and say, you know, I was in that movie in the dining room. That's the back of my head. I'm like, you know, back your head was very good. It was released. Um 81 there was an actor's strike going on. It could not be promoted in the media, it was released instead of slowly, like most romantic films are to build a B All at once across the country closed within two weeks. It lost a bit of money. It almost started picking up momentum within the first year I was released in Europe, released in the Orient when it was released in DVD. It has snowballed to a point and this is an amazing thing to me as the second largest fan club and following of any single release movie after gone with the wind in 22 years, I've never had a day when someone didn't come and ask me about the movie. When I write about it. I say two things, I try to distill it down to what really attracts people to this. And one love transcends death. Time travels, the ultimate fantasy and it combines them. And the difference between us and other movie sets is we're all here. 95% of it was shot on the island, 90% was shot on our property. So that movie touches you, which it does so many hundreds of people you can come here and you can live the movie, everything's here. Christopher Reeve, the late Christopher Christopher Reeve and Seymour who still comes special themed weekend. Right? We have a somewhere in Time weekend which is just, it's a phenomena to me, it's at the end of the season, we basically highlight the film, the actors, the writers, the cinematographers come back, the site visit people, local people come back. It is four our site visit showing of the film trivia contest. They have souvenirs and about two thirds of the people dress in 1912 clothing. I don't mean just one outfit. I mean multiple outfits, dozens of hat boxes do a prominent, it is phenomenal and one thing we did quite accidentally that worked out brilliant and this happens every now and then. Um we called Barney, our interior designer wanted to do a sink the Titanic dinner. So we under protest about six years ago, we did it. We had no idea how popular it would be. Then we start, we've done it for the last six years and, and we realized that it's the same people because the Titanic sank in 1912, the movies 1912. It's the same folks, they sink the ship come back and they time travel later in the fall. And I mean it about it at least a third of the same folks doing both weekends. Whenever you can work in time travel, there's only upside the upside to all of that there are few places this special that have a correlation to your guests. Maybe it goes to a movie, maybe it goes to a family wedding or some sort of a milestone that took place here on the island. The island got its own mystique and its own magic to it being what it is. But you've been at that desk for a couple of decades and able to see families progress. You've seen kids grow up to remember them every year. It's pretty impressive. It is amazing. And even my time is just such a short period. The family that owns us there on third full management generation, fourth generations and has six kids and some of them are working here at the Hotel American businesses that make it to the fourth generation solely in the same family. The United States are less than 7% and as well as the ownership also our guests, we have fourth generation guest six years ago in the tiger and I attended a wedding where a young lady got married on the same spot, her great grandmother got married now, that brand loyalty right there. It's an iconic place that seems to have um like you said, some are intimidated by the thought of going there and others are scared to death at the thought that they might not be able to make it this particular summer health or schedule or whatever. It's, it's remarkable what um impressions this grand old lady can give to either guests or those that have dreamed of being guests. I don't know if it's intimidating. I don't know if that's the right word. But there is something about, well, it's, it's on, it's just so different, you know, it's not, and again, it's not a single thing. It's just like the way we look. We're called Marnie Dorothy Draper. Bright unbelievable colors. 393 rooms, every single room is different. We have antiques ranging. We're not a museum, we have pieces that The oldest one is right behind us where we're recording from the 1600s. All the way up to Victorian modern postmark is put together an eclectic dynamic, but most importantly, a movable mix. We're not a museum, we're not stagnant. You were constantly changing, going with the flow, going with business, going with social, guess what people want, hear what works, what doesn't work? We have the six months to figure that out. And that creates the experience the summer memory. When he talks about decorating here. He says, I gift wrap a summer memory. Every room is a gift package that's been turned inside out. You provide the summer memory I gift wrap. It presented to the guest together. One of my favorite annual conversations to have with you is the crazy and off the wall questions that guests will stop by the concierge desk and ask the people who listen to my radio program. My golf program have heard some of these examples over the years. But for the listeners to the big impact program, this will all be new. So you need to understand folks, some of you who are listening are here in the state of Michigan. Some of you are not um Grand hotel sits on an island, it's not a peninsula, there's not, it's an island all the way around, you can ride a bike all the way around it. And, and so I'm always thrilled to hear some of the questions that come to you, especially those that, that pertain to whether this is an island or not. So, can you enlighten us, take us on a tour of some of the great bill? That's my all time favorite. I was actually on the late Paul Harvey's radio show with this one as he asked me what the most unique and most fun question I was ever asked and it's been asked more than once. And that is the original. Does the water go all the way around the island? And sometimes I'm creative. I said no, on the Canadian side, it's gravy. You know, the Canadians love gravy out there. If I ride my bicycle around the island, how far is it? It's 8.2 miles which would be shorter to the right or to the left. Do you miss the United States working here? We had a big storm. Last weekend. Guests want to know if the horses still ran when the power was out. And last year, every year I have the best of the best. I collect them. I have over 300 of them and they're all legitimate there. I call them. I say there's no dumb questions but boy, are some of them close. Save your best one for a minute and a couple others. We've got seafood related questions. Seafood related questions. You catch your own. Seafood. Yeah. Yeah. Seafood. My favorite one in that lines is without question was a very nice dignified lady. Came up and again, we try to answer. There's no dumb questions. And she wanted me to book a whale watching tour out in the Great Lakes. And I said, I said, man, there's no whales in the Great Lakes. And she said, what happened? Well, the sharks got up. She goes, oh, really? And she walks away. That's, that's one of my all time favorites in the world. Ocean view room. Oh, yeah. People say we're very disappointed we didn't get an ocean view room and you have to see about 1495 miles from our island to see the ocean. But we do have lake view rooms, which is kind of fun as well. Take us to your Hall of Famer from last season. Well, that was my favorite. Last season was the Shark Watching, which was just, just absolutely brilliant. I just love it. Some people wanted a carriage tour of the Mackinaw Bridge which we cannot arrange that. They also wanted some brochures from this hospital last week and I don't have any brochures from our particular hospital, hospital. That's a great commentary as well. Yeah, some people are getting some help. That's very true. Very true. At that desk. Jeez. I really don't know. I think they'll probably stuff me, propped me up and I'll say around behind me downstairs on the left is the bathroom, go to the center stall. That's probably what's happening. Now, I think I'm furniture here. You know that bill, they just desk me off periodically. They could record some of your best stuff, little sound box near you. Late at night. After my passing, you will hear my voice on the front porch, lecturing to a column or pillar. I'm pretty sure that's gonna happen. Well, I have rarely encountered somebody with as much passion for what they do as you. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. We could go into a deep historical overview of this great place like you do on your tours, your lectures that you give, but you've given us a really good a teaser, so to speak for guests to come up here and bug you in person. Like I did experience, come up, you owe it to yourself once your life to come up here and once you come up, you'll come back. We'd love to hear your comments and questions about Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island via social media. Be sure to use hashtag Grand Hotel. Thanks for listening. I'm Bill Hobson and we'll talk again soon on another episode of the official Mackinaw Island podcast. Thank you for listening to this edition of the official Mackinac Island podcast. We'd love to hear from you with questions or comments about today's episode or suggestions for future topics. You can reach out to us via email at Mackinaw Island podcast at gmail dot com or online at Mackinaw island dot org. We'll look forward to seeing you this summer as you visit America's favorite freshwater destination, Michigan's crown Jewel, Mackinaw Island.