February 26, 2025 • 53 mins
The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island is considered the crown jewel of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But behind her elegant white facade, the history can turn dark, and the spirits left behind are anything but quiet.
Special Guest: Todd Clements
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Minky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener, discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
A few years back, I was sitting in what may
have been the most beautiful hotel I had ever laid
eyes on. To be honest, I wasn't a guest, but
I walked in like I was one, trying not to
catch anyone's attention. I sidled up to the first bar
I saw, and sat and ordered a glass of wine
so I could fully absorb my surroundings. The hotel was
(00:36):
positively lush with color, and clearly there was a dress code,
because all the women were in dresses and the men
in jackets. Thankfully, i'd gotten the memo beforehand, but I'd
also gotten the memo that this hotel was haunted. Built
in the late eighteen hundreds, ghost stories have been told
about it for decades. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued. Point blank,
(01:00):
asked the bartender, is this hotel haunted? She looked at me,
quite literally, like she had seen a ghost. She looked
back and forth as if to see if anyone was
within earshot, and she leaned in close to me and
whispered I'm not supposed to talk about it, but yes,
I won't even walk back to the employee housing alone again.
(01:23):
She looked around and quickly said, that's all I can say.
So of course I had to know more. Why don't
we learn together? Come with me Haunted roadies as we
journey to the Grand Hotel on mckinaw Island. I'm Amy Bruney,
and this is Haunted Road. Mckinaw Island is a small
(01:45):
isle in Michigan's Lake Huron. It spans just under four
square miles. You can reach it a few ways via
a fifteen minute ferry ride or by charter plane, but
there are no bridges or roads that would let you
drive or walk there. The only other option is to
wait until the lake freeze is solid enough that you
can cross it by snowmobile. Sounds terrifying. If you venture
(02:08):
out to Mackinaw, you'll find largely untouched wilderness, as over
eighty percent of the land is a state park. While
you can shop for homemade fudge or other gifts, for
the most part, businesses and homes are hard to come by.
Only about five hundred people live on the island full time,
but on top of one grassy treelined one hundred foot
(02:30):
tall bluff, an expansive, five story hotel stands. It's a
grand white building that combines Queen Anne and colonial revival elements.
This building, called the Grand Hotel, is one of the
last remaining wood frame hotels in the United States, and
it's no surprise that it's still standing. It's made of
(02:52):
white pine from Michigan. According to the hotel's February fourteenth,
nineteen eighty nine National Register of Historic Places form, this
kind of pine is known as the wood eternal because
it's so sturdy. A six hundred and sixty foot long
porch runs the hotel's exterior, dotted with numerous two story
(03:13):
tall white columns. They're capped with a green roof. A
cupola rises from the center of the building, and it
holds an American flag. The outside is deceiving. The classic
white exterior houses a colorful and boldly patterned interior. Red
armchairs rest on a green checkered carpet that features alternating
(03:35):
ruby circles and lime green squares. The dining room can
hold eight hundred people, meaning mckinaw's entire population could eat
there and still have open seats. And in keeping with
the hotel's tendency toward bright colors, it has bold green
and white striped chairs. The ceiling is a slightly tamer
(03:55):
shade of mint green, and the three hundred and ninety
seven guest rooms feature pink, blue and green wallpaper in
floral prints or stripes, and equally garish bedding. The bold
hues are everywhere because one former owner banned the use
of beige during a renovation, so you can't escape bright
shades and patterns in the thirteen restaurants and bars, or
(04:18):
the pool, the golf course, tennis courts, or meditation gardens.
A reporter once tried to put the hotel's unique design
elements into words in her article with the Wall Street Journals.
She wrote, imagine if the Mad Hatter had trained as
an interior designer. That's what the Grand Hotel looks like today.
(04:39):
But if you were to travel back in time to
the eighteenth century, this area would have had a very
different appearance. According to the island's official blog, the indigenous
Anishinovic people saw Mackinaw as a sacred refuge, and it
was also where they buried their dead. The name Mackinaw
comes from a word their people used. It translates into
(05:02):
English as place of the great Turtle. In the sixteen hundreds,
the first Europeans set foot on Mackinaw Island, and afterward
it developed but slowly. The British military built a fort
there in seventeen eighty. Then it spent some time as
a fur trading out post, but by the post Civil
War era the island was a tourist destination. Its pristine
(05:26):
wilderness was a big draw for those who wanted to
escape the bustle of city living. Its northern climate was
also appealing to people fleeing the summer heat. In an
effort to preserve Mckinaw's natural beauty and avoid congestion, the
island banned all cars in eighteen ninety eight. The band
still stands today, so if you're thinking of visiting, be
(05:48):
prepared to walk, bike, or hire a horse drawn taxi. However,
before the band passed, another major development came about with
the influx of tourists. It was only natural for the
Central Railroad, the Indiana Railroad, and the Cleveland Steamship Navigation
Company to find ways to keep drawing travelers to Mackinaw.
(06:09):
After all, those visitors also brought business to their companies,
so they cooperated to finance a hotel on the island.
Construction crews broke ground in the spring of eighteen eighty seven. Reportedly,
over the course of the three month long construction period,
the workers kept uncovering grave after grave, those of both
(06:32):
humans and animals. Sophie Boudreau wrote on Only in Your
State website that the teams found too many bones for
the crews to keep track of. The workers were so
overwhelmed that at one point they stopped trying to keep
track of all the graves they'd uncovered. Instead, they ignored
the tombs, choosing to literally build the hotel on top
(06:54):
of them. Now I have not been able to verify
that claim. Some people believe that the story about the
burial plot under the hotel is little more than an
urban legend, but it is worth mentioning that the indigenous
people did in fact bury their dead on the island
for centuries, and it's not uncommon for construction projects on
mckinaw to uncover ancient graves even to this day. Whether
(07:19):
the hotel was literally built on the bones of the
deceased or not, it quickly gained a reputation as a
premier vacation destination. Originally it was called Planck's Grand Hotel,
but with time the structure came to be known simply
as the Grand Hotel. Guests came when they were looking
for a quiet place to relax, a place where they
(07:40):
could sit on the porch, enjoying a cool breeze off
the straits of Mackinaw and maybe take in a lecture.
Mark Twain spoke there in the late eighteen hundreds, as
did one of Thomas Edison's employees. He was there to
show off Edison's latest invention, the phonograph. Over the years,
the Grand Hotel has boasted many rich and famous guests,
(08:01):
including multiple US presidents and Madonna. It has been designated
as a National Historic Landmark since nineteen eighty nine, which
was two years after its hundredth birthday. But in the
midst of all these celebrations and milestones, darkness lurked. See
A woman named Lilian Salter was working as a chambermaid
(08:22):
at the Grand Hotel in July of eighteen ninety three.
She'd only been at the job for a few weeks
and was living in the employee housing on site. On
the night of the thirteenth, she decided to attend a
dance elsewhere on the island. There she met a man,
a soldier named Will Badgeley. He offered to walk her home,
(08:42):
and Lilian accepted his chivalry, perhaps thinking he'd keep her safe. Sadly,
there was no one to keep her safe from Will,
who sexually assaulted her on the way to the hotel.
Lilian put up a vicious fight, leaving Will with visible
injuries on his face, but it wasn't enough to stop
the attack. She survived the rape, but was too distraught
(09:06):
and ashamed to tell anyone what had happened to her. Afterward,
she spent a few days trying to live her life
like normal, but by July seventeenth, her trauma was becoming
too great to bear. Sadly, she took her own life.
We only know about the sexual assault and the toll
it took on her mental health because Lilian left behind
(09:27):
two suicide notes. One was addressed to her aunt and
the other was an open letter. In both of the messages,
she explained what had happened to her and named her attacker.
She also asked to be buried with the photo of
her fiance which she'd been holding in her hands at
the time of her death. On the strength of the
testimony in her note, the police arrested and charged William.
(09:51):
He denied having anything to do with Lilian, but his
guilt was clear from the scratches and bruises on his face.
The public was so outraged that several people threatened William's life.
It was impossible for him to stand trial on Mackinaw Island,
so the case was transferred to the mainland. There, he
was found guilty and sentenced to eight years of hard labor.
(10:14):
As for Lilian, it's said that her spirit still walks
the grounds of the Grand Hotel. According to witnesses, she
strolls up and down the beach outside, a reminder of
the violence that stains the hotel's history. She's just one
of many ghosts that are said to haunt this area.
The hotel is only open for about half of the year,
(10:36):
from May to late October, but during those months guests
often hear disembodied footsteps and voices. Doors are known to
open and close on their own, and the dining room
and the hallways outside the guest rooms are both good
locations to stab a picture if you're looking to catch
some sort of an anomaly on film. A spectral man
(10:57):
in a top hat is often spotted in the bar
near the piano. Eyewitnesses have seen him smoking a cigar,
and occasionally guests can smell the tobacco smoke even when
he isn't visible. In the hallways and guest rooms, a
Victorian era woman dressed all in white is seen pacing about,
and occasionally she tries to climb into bed with unsuspecting
(11:20):
employees who live in the staff quarters. There have also
been reports of a pair of ghostly soldiers on the grounds.
As unnerving as all of that is, the most frightening
accounts feature a spirit that's said to dwell in the
Grand Hotels theater. It's also according to rumor evil. This
figure looks like a dark figure or cloud, and sometimes
(11:43):
it has two red eyes. Those who have seen the
entity insist that it has no arms, legs, or face. However,
it is vaguely human in size and silhouette. According to
Sophie Boudreaux, on one occasion, a group of maintenance workers
had to do a project in the theater. They were
part of the way through their task when one of
them sensed something eerie. He glanced up from what he
(12:07):
was doing to see the shadowy entity standing right beside him,
glaring with those glowing red eyes. Before the worker could
run away or scream, the shadow figure rushed forward. He
hit the man so hard that he was knocked unconscious.
It said that he needed to stay in a hospital
for two full days before he recovered, and afterward he
(12:28):
refused to ever set foot inside ever again. That said,
many of the spirits there are friendly, or at the
very least they're not violent. One such entity is a
little girl who's been dubbed Rebecca. According to rumors, she
was once a guest at the hotel until she tragically
fell through a window and died.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
From the fall.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
These days, her ghost is known to pace the hallways
every night between two am and four am. Another woman
is often spotted on the porch, dressed head totie and
black and walking a large white dog. Rumor goes that
she's also a former guest, a woman who checked in
one day in eighteen ninety one. She was clearly wealthy
(13:10):
based on the footmen and maid she brought with her,
but that's all anyone knew about her for the duration
of her stay, she stayed in her room with the
door closed. She refused to leave or to interact with
the other guests, with a few notable exceptions. Her story
was recorded in Haunts of Mackinaw, ghost Stories, Legends and
Tragic Tales of Mckinaw Island by Todd Clemens. He wrote
(13:32):
that the woman in Black only ventured from her room
three times a day. Every day, she walked her white
Russian bloodhound at eight a m. Noon and seven pm.
And finally, at the end of her visit, she checked
out and never returned. Supposedly, on that day, a large
blackbird also sat on a perch just outside her window,
(13:52):
like some kind of omen. Now I need to acknowledge
that I wasn't able to verify many of those details.
It's in possible to say if a reclusive woman in
black did check into the Grand Hotel that year. But
if there is any truth to the story, it fits
with what we know about the spirit. If anyone tries
to point her out or draw attention to her in
(14:13):
any way, she'll disappear in an instant, as though she's
just as shy in death as she was in life.
This woman isn't the only spirit whose history is shrouded
in mystery and unverified conjecture. But the hotel's history is
still worth investigating even if we never uncover the full truth.
That's why I'm talking to the aforementioned Todd Clements. He's
(14:36):
an expert on all things spooky on Mackinaw Island and
this is his second time on the show that is
coming up after the break. Okay, everyone, I am now
(14:57):
joined by my friend Todd Clements. And Todd actually heads
up Haunts of Mackinaw on Macinaw Island, and he is
an expert in all things Macanaw, not just historically but
ghostly as well, so I figured he was the perfect
person to talk to the Grand Hotel or talk about
(15:18):
the Grand Hotel too. So welcome to the program again, Todd.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Thank you again for having me. Glad to be back.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, it was I think it was a few years ago.
I had to have been twenty twenty one. I think
maybe twenty two. You were my first like live yeah,
my first live Haunted road episode.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
We did it at Michigan per.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Con and that one we talked about the island as
a whole as opposed to kind of singling out specific
locations and I really so I featured the Grand Hotel
in my cookbook.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
We featured their recipe for.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Their like they're known for their pecan balls their dessert there,
so we featured that recipe and I really got to
dig into the history and the hauntings there and I
was like, this is a whole episode of Haunted Roads.
So thank you for that. I think really the first
time I realized, well, you can just look at that
hotel and you're like, there's got to be ghosts there.
(16:13):
But I remember Adam and I went there for a
drink years ago while we were there for a Strained
Escapes and we asked one of the seasonal employees. We
were like, you know, is this place haunted? And you know,
she basically was like, I don't like to talk about it,
(16:33):
but you don't know what we deal with in employee housing,
like that area in particular was very spooky. So how
do you think the Grand handles their hauntings in general?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Well, generally they don't want to talk about it. It's
a policy at the hotel. Things are changing, but their
general policy was we're not haunted. Plus, speaking with someone
who is from Jamaica, a lot of the islanders, or
a lot of the workers on the island from Jamaica
are very s perstitious. But anything that has to do
with ghosts see occult very voodoo minded. They don't. They're
(17:06):
always worried about it. And between those two things is
probably why she's I'm not talking about this.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, she was seasonal and she's It's funny. I've seen
her now a few times since, Like she always works
in that that great little bar that's outside of like
the main dining room area. So over the summer for
the first time ever, like, I've always dreamed of staying
at the Grand Hotel, and so this year, kind of
knowing that was gonna be the last year of Michigan
per con I I think I booked, Like in the fall,
(17:35):
I booked two nights at the Grand Hotel for my
daughter and I just to experience it because I wasn't
sure i'd be back in that area. It turns out
I am going back, but I was really excited to
actually stay there, and I did some investigating in my
room and I live streamed some of it actually with
the Paranormal Circle folks who are in the Panormal Circle,
(17:57):
and it was really interesting. We did get some I'm
like gradyvps. She and I investigated later at night and
we got a lot of interaction with some of our equipment.
Who do you think is haunting that hotel?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Overall?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
It's not one, pretty sure that we know, there's several.
We also know there's some residual haunts at the hotel.
We don't know exactly which when it happened, but there's
one of those. But I would say the most common
that I hear of would be strange things in rooms, obviously,
(18:31):
But there is someone we called and we don't know
their actual name, the bear man whoa We have a
girl named Rebecca, and there's a security guard or a
maintenance worker that people have instances with. And then there's
the woman in black. Those are the ones that we
know about. There's possibly more than that. And then there's
(18:54):
a residual party that just keeps on going on into eternity.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
That is very Shining esque. Like that sounds very much
like the show.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Oh yeah, it's very much. Yeah, that's what I thought
when I first heard it. I was like, they pull
on my leg and then I've heard the story of
the party. It's it's all sound. You don't see anything.
You just hear it. You can almost feel it through
the floorboards. But it happens in the middle of the night.
If you want me, I can share it. I'll share
the story of the right.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, please, I want to hear about that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
So if you're staying in the rooms that are above
the main dining room, right above the main dining room,
and sometime in the middle of the night, most people
say it wakes them up, and it's if they're with
someone else, they boat. They all hear it. Everybody in
the room will hear it. And you'll hear like big
band music, snare, drums and horns and all these noises,
(19:47):
and you hear this chatter of people talking. You hear
glasses and plates clinking together, and just a party. It's
a loud band, people talking, drinking, having party. This is
like three four o'clock in the morning or something like
that in the dining room right below their room. And
some of them have gone down obviously throw their slippers
(20:09):
on and or call down to the front desk, what's
going on. Why is there so much noise coming from
the dining room. It's empty. The ones who have gone
down there to see what's going on. Say, the velvet
rope is up, the room is completely and it is
a big dining room.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
You've been there, It's huge. Yeah, it's massive.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It's huge. The lights are out, you can't see anything.
It's at least two hundred yards two hundred yards long
at least. It's enormous, and it's completely black. There's nothing
going on. And then they'll go back up to the room.
They can still hear it, and then all of a sudden,
it just fades and disappears. So they hear this party
(20:49):
going on. And I've heard this story from so many
guests that I'm just like, I don't know how to
explain other than that it's a residual haunt of something
that got trapped in time.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I'm gonna I'm gonna look for it because so I
had so much fun last year, and my daughter loved
it so much. They've redone their pool just unrelated to
anything we're talking about right now, but it is one
of the best hotel pools I've ever been to. It's
so beautiful, and so she it has a water side.
She dreams of that pool, and so she already asked me,
(21:21):
because we're going back. We have a conference uh in
Sue Saint Marie this summer? Was it Great Lakes Ghosts.
What's it called that we're doing?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I know you're.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I'm doing it too. I know. Oh it's something presented
by a Michigan paricon.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, it's presented con something. I will look it up
at some point before. But it's like the Great Lakes, Oh,
Great Lakes Ghostly Weekend. So anyways, it's in August for
anyone who wants to join us. We're going to be
in Sue Saint Marie and we're investigating the Valley camp,
which we've done an episode on and things. So it's
gonna be so much fun and it's amazing and it's
(21:57):
very close to Macana, so you can visit.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
That being said, let me come back to this.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I booked us again for this summer, so Charlotte and
I can go again. And I am going to investigate this.
I need to find out of this, like ghostly party happens.
I'm going to try to request a room above the
dining room.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Sometimes it's just luck of the draw you get those rooms.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah, So I'm going to see what I can do.
But like I am intent on investigating it.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I have to kind of throw back.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So the first time I went to Macana Island, it
was January. Do not recommend of twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, I remember that. It was twenty seven degrees below
zero one night.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Oh my god, it was so cold, and like I
just remember, I actually ended up having the best time
it was. You know, you were there for a lot
of it. Steve and Dave and Adam and I. We
stayed on the island the whole time for like two weeks,
and it got to this point where like every night
we would we would go to the one of two
restaurants that were still open. We knew all the locals
(22:58):
by the end of it. Every night we'd sit in
the lobby of the hotel we were staying at. We
would drink wine and play Liverpool Rummy until like two am.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So it ended up being a very good memory. But
it was very cool. But that was the first time
I saw the Grand Hotel because you I was, I
feel like, it.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Was like one in the morning and I was liked,
take me to.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
The Grand Hotel. So you took me.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, they were at the bar and then I had
I had a snowmobile and you like I got to
see the Grand Hotel and I was like, well, crap,
might as well got me. You got a snowmobile. It's
not that bad if you're on a snowmobile.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
No, it would have.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Been in a night Mirre, Oh it would have been.
And we did it. It was probably not the smartest thing,
but people knew where we were going, so that was
good but true. It was a full moon and I
remember we just took the snowmobile up all the way
to the front of that hotel and I could just
feel there was something like magical about that place or
(23:53):
just it just.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
It feels like it's staring at you.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
It did. It felt like everybody says.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
It feels like the hotel stares at you.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
That was it.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It definitely I got this vibe like it was like
the whole hotel was like we are not expecting guests
right now. You know, this kind of energy came off
of it. It seems it felt like people were looking
at us out the windows. I remember feeling like we're
going to get in trouble.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Uh. It just really put off that vibe.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
So want I always wonder, like, what do you think
is going on in there in the middle of winter
when it's all shut down quiet.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There's some people there, but not many, and they're not
there all the time.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, have they had any reports that come out of
there during that time period, because I feel like there
would be.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
I've talked to a few people who've worked like winter
maintenance or security on the ground and they said they, yes,
there's no question. You always feel like there's something around you.
You hear noises that you shouldn't hear. You think you
see somebody duck around a corner and you know you
saw somebody, but you go run to see who it is.
(25:02):
There's nobody there. There's nobody in the hallway. There's no
way they could get into anything where they could just
disappear like that. And they're just like, yeah, it's got things.
But I mean, someone will say, you know, I don't
believe in all that, but there's that one time, and
I'm just like, well, then you believe in it because
you have that one time. But some of the most
common things they say is they hear footsteps. The key
(25:26):
ring that's a common one, is a ring of keys,
and then they also just see things that they'll think
they saw something at the end of a hallway, and
the hallways there are very very long. It's very much
like the movie The Shining, but it's not the same hotel.
It's just the hallways go on forever, and they think
(25:46):
they see somebody standing at the end of the hallway,
and then they duck into another hallway and they run
down there to see who's in the hotel. There's nobody there.
So there's some activity definitely year round going on in.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
The hotel, I would feel, I mean, and it does
have that kind of shining by people always think, well,
any hotel like that, people think that's where The Shining
was filmed, and I always have to be like, The
Shining was filmed in a sound stage. It was not
filmed in an actual hotel. It was not filmed at
the Stage.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Hotel in Washington, Oregon. Yeah, and which is still there.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
It is still there. I think it's called the Overlook,
but I might be or Timberline.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I can't remember, but I think it's Timberline.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Timberline Overlook is.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah, the Shining, which is the Stanley. Yeah, but but
it wasn't the Stanley Exceptely mini series was. So we're
just clearing this all up here of folks.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, making sure right now, it wasn't. It wasn't Grand Hotel,
and it wasn't Mission Point Resort on mac An Island,
which I've heard a million times. I'm like, they don't
even look the same.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
What do you even know?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
They say them out Washington too, and I have to
correct people. My favorite is when people argue with me
on it and I'm like, I am sorry, but if
anyone knows, it's me, so okay. But that being said,
so I met with the hotel this last summer when
I was there, and they told me that they are
doing a lot of remodeling this season for this summer.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, they have been for the past two three years.
They have new owners.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Well, it sounds like they're gonna redecorate between now and opening,
and they're gonna because, like right now it is, it
has this very iconic decor inside that I believe happened
in like the seventies. It's bright green, stated Yeah, it's
bright green, it's bright red.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It's very like flots of floral. I love it.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I think it is so it makes for really just
striking photos and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
But it sounds like they're.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Going to try to keep some of that like kind of,
like I said, iconic decor style, but they're going to
change it up or maybe even like modernize it a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
What I've heard is that the main areas, like common
the traffic areas where the guests move in and out
and about, they're going to kind of spruce that up.
I heard they're keeping some of the suites they're not touching,
but some of the rooms are going to be converted
to a little more modern. Someone are still going to
stay with that old world look to them, so they're
(28:21):
just to think they're just gonna kind of pepper it
in with new and old.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I'm just wondering what do you think that's going to
do to the haunting there? Do you think that's going
to affect things when guests arrive this summer? Do you
think it's going to be more more active than normal?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I yes and no. Yes that whenever something changes, activity
always tends to go up. Not so sure because it's
not their home. I don't think anybody would call it.
I always find that if it's a house that's hein remodeled,
you get more activity than if it's like a general
(28:57):
public location, just because it's not like, you're changing my home.
What are you doing where in the general public location,
they're more like, oh, well that's different, but this isn't
my home. It's hard to I guess if that explains it.
I do expect activity to go. Also the fact that
now people are starting to go there and look around
(29:18):
more for everything. Maybe something wants to say, hey, here,
I've been trying to get in touch with you guys
for over one hundred years, but you're finally listening.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
It's interesting there because even when it's sold out, like
when we stayed, it was sold out, and so during
the day it's very busy because there are a lot
of people that are on the island that are like,
you know, if they're staying at other hotels or they're
coming to the island for the day and they want
to visit the hotel and you have to pay ten
dollars and you can come in and walk around and whatever.
I always made it my goal to not pay the
ten dollars though, But there's a trick.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
There's a trick.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
But five or six pm, Yeah, you don't have to pay,
but you do have to wear a tie and a
jacket or a dress.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
To get Yeah, there is a dress code. They're very strict.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Around unless you go up to the coop La Bar,
which is the one that's at the top, you can
wear whatever you want. And I'll be honest, on my
way home from work downtown up the hill, that's my
pit stop with some dreads LUs we go up there
dressed in regular clothes, just on our way home because
we love.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
The coople Of bar. The view up there is amazing.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
So but what I oh, I'm getting out is that
during so during the day it's busy because everyone's in there,
but then at night, even with the sold out hotel,
it quiets down incredibly because everyone is off the island
by a certain point and everyone's.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Back at their hotels.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
And so especially once dinner is done, because I think
dinner goes into like no, it's very formal, everything like
you can't like. Unfortunately, my child, she's a big tomboy.
She was so mad she had to wear a dress.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
So I'm sure she just had a great time.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
She loved the pool. She did not like the dress code.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
What I'm getting at is that it's very easy at
the end of everything, you know, after ten o'clock to
really walk around and absorb the hotel and get into
you know, you can walk into some common areas or
public spaces where I feel like it would be really
easy to sneak in some investigating. So have you heard
of anyone do that of doing that?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yes, I can't name names, but yes, it's always off
the books. It's always you have a room at the hotel,
or you might have just stopped there with some equipment
that happened to be in a bag and nobody around.
So let's ask a few questions see if anything happens.
They do lock off some of the better areas. Some
(31:41):
of them are some of the areas that I think
there's going to be more activity because it really hasn't
been investigated very much because it's been hands off. There's
a few rooms that, obviously I think there might be
something going on. It's hit or miss if some of
the rooms in the building are unlocked or not if
you beek in there at night. There's the terrace room,
(32:03):
the theater, the dining room, the private rooms. I mean,
there's a lot of little nooks and crannies a place
people have reported things and there is security there that
walks around twenty four hours a day. Seven days a week,
not three hundred and sixty five days a year. But
in the winter they're they're checking doors and doing everything.
(32:25):
I think they do four checks a day.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
I mean so talking with you know, kind of touring
the hotel and stuff this summer, I was talking to
some of the employees. They had a lot to say
about the theater ghost wise.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And then there's also a room.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
I feel like it's when you go into like that
kind of main lobby area and you know how you
walk up these those little steps and there's like a
sitting area up there, those big doors, and behind that
there's another events space or like dining.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
They don't I think it's changed names, but we call
it the Terrasts Room. I think still the Terrors.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Oh good, So that she was very much like that room.
That is where we get so many reports of things happening.
What happens in there paranormally speaking, like what reports come
out of that room?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Have you heard of anything?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
There's reports? But yeah, I'm a person who like either
I have to hear it a hundred times from one
hundred people who don't know each other, or I have
to see it myself.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
No, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
There's reports of figures just moving around in the room
in the corners. There was a report once of someone
who walked in to do like cleaning, and there was
a man dressed in a suit but not of today,
like an old timy suit, sitting in the corner at
a table, feed up on the table and a hat
(33:48):
next to his feet. And as soon as she like
she saw him, and then she was like what and
then it was gone. So you don't know if they're
been working too hard or they actually saw sitting in
the room. Serious, but terrace room, I don't. I hear rumors, yeah,
but then again, I've never had a chance to actually investigate.
(34:10):
That's one of the rooms that is either under lock
and key or security or it's busy. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
I thought it was interesting that they volunteered that information
to me, And I was like, hmmm, how many like
the hauntings in the hotel, how many of those do
you think are maybe caused by things that happened before
the hotel was even built, Because there was clearly a
lot of violence on the island before the Grand even existed.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So the Grand was built if they started construction eighteen
eighty six, it was done in eighteen eighty seven. One
of the things I don't know if you'd mentioned, but
when they went to build the foundations for this hotel,
they picked the Great Spot. Obviously you can see it
everywhere and it has a great view. But when they
(34:57):
went to put the foundations in coming across human remains,
and then more and more and more. It was Native
American and they found tons and tons of these these
sets of human remains that nobody knows what happened two
of those remains. Most likely back then the world was
a different place. People have to remember. History isn't always kind.
(35:20):
They probably threw them in the lake, that's what most
or they put them in a landfill. Nobody knows where
it happened to them. But that's just back then, that
was just kind of what it was. It was glorified
garbage to them at the time. We don't do it
that way anymore. Obviously on the island. Things some times
have changed. But back then that's how they did it,
because you would come across bones everywhere on the island,
(35:42):
But there was a concentration in that one spot where
Grand Hotel sits. Some say they just stopped moving them
and they just built built through them, and there was
still more there when they were building it. So Grant
Hotel in most of mac And Island is a cemetery,
so most people don't think of that, but it was
(36:03):
this magn Island was like secret land to many of
the tribes. It was their garden of Eden. It was
where man began. It was where geechee Manitou, which is
their great one of the great gods, or the great
God for most of the tribes, that's where he said
it's time for man, and he created man.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
And I can see why they would think that, like
it is just this, it is this otherworldly place.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
And there's part of me that feels as though the
reason why hauntings are so prevalent there and and at
the Grand as well, is this because it's kind of
purposely frozen in time. You know, there's no cars, the houses,
you know, they don't really allow building. The houses are
(36:50):
all older. It literally is like stepping back in a
time machine. And it makes me wonder if just like
that's comforting to some of those spirits. And you know,
I've talked a lot about hotels and how I don't
necessarily think everybody just haunts their houses. But I do
think they come back to places that were important to
them in life, you know, And the Grand Hotel is
the site of how many you know, weddings and celebrations
(37:14):
and family vacations and beautiful memories, and so it makes
me wonder if some of these spirits are people just
kind of coming back in the afterlife to like relive
their memories and it hasn't changed, which is like so magical.
Do you think that affects very much?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Same? Yeah, I think it does. I mean, there are
people who are so passionate about that island, and everybody
that is like that, I want to live here, and
then they see the price tag for double.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
In January and they'll change their minds for.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
A double wide trailer. Yeah, it's not a cheap place.
And then as soon as January hits, they're like, get
me out of here. It's freaking cold. And I gave
me there's no boats because when the lake freezes, the
boat stop.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
I had to fly off the island. I learned that lesson.
It was quite an experience.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Let me just y, we have better we have better planes. Now.
A new company came in. I'm glad because It was.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
The most terrifying twelve minutes of my life.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Yes, when you see duct tape where a bolt should be,
you start to go it's just see.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
But I was almost planting back on an island. I
would have gone straight back to that. My ghost would
have gone back to the Grand.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
But yeah, there's a lot of attachment to the island.
I'm sure that that island that all the those are cottages,
all the houses on the island, almost none of them
are year round residents. There might be like four on
the entire island. And like the big Ones, there's there's
an area village in the middle of the woods that
most tourists never see, but that area is year round
(38:56):
people and there's usually four hundred and fifty to five
hundred people who stay there winter, families, kids, stay of
a schools. It's just small.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I met a woman there when we were there filming,
and she told me like she rarely left the island,
so she stayed there all some or all winter rather.
But then one winter she broke her arm, and so
she said, the first time she ever was on an
airplane was she had to be flown off the island
to get her arm treated. So she literally just never left.
(39:29):
She was there all She was like, I rarely ever
left the island, and she said, finally I had to
leave on a little puddle jumper with my broken arm.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
The longest I've ever talked to anybody who's been on
island and not left the island is eight years.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I mean they didn't leave the island for eight years.
And I was like, I don't think I could do that. Congratulations,
I don't think I could stand. I mean, it's a
beautiful place. It's not super small, but it's small. I mean,
e I guess, yeah, you work, you do this, you
do that. You got restaurants, you got grocery store, you
(40:04):
got what you needed, and you can have anything else delivered.
So it's possible. But I don't know. I'd go stir
crazy in eight years.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
So what do you say?
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Is probably the most frequently spotted apparition at the Grand
spotted Rebecca.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
It's a girl. I'm sure she's the one who's the
most seen apparition where you can actually see her.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Is she a little girl?
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Or yeah, she's I've heard between eight and twelve years old.
So I usually have people ask us say she's around ten.
We know the story of Rebecca. We're pretty sure the
name is Rebecca. But what happened was in the nineteen fifties.
She was on vacation with her family. She was sitting there,
(40:50):
apparently on the fourth floor. She was leaning against a
window screen in the room and the screen popped out.
She didn't survive the fall, and she wanders around. She
interacts with kids. Very very rarely will an adult have
a story of Rebecca. And usually it's kids that will
(41:11):
tell me the story of the mom will drag the
kid up when I'm doing a book signing or something,
be like, tell him what you saw at the hotel?
Tell him. So they'll tell me, Yeah, it's a lot
of them are in the hallway. Most of them are
in hallways. They would just be like, there was this
girl and she was peeking around the corner, and then
she stepped out, and she's wearing an old dress. And
(41:32):
when it's like she wanted to play hide and seek
her tag and if I went after her, she would
she took off and then she was gone. And then
another kid was telling me about she had a ball
and she tossed the ball at him and he was
watching the ball, and the ball disappeared, never made it
to his hands. He looks up, she's not there, and
he's like, no, I'm I'm sure one hundred percent she
(41:53):
was real. She wasn't like, she wasn't a ghost. She
was a real girl. And I was like, Okay, that's
a full bodied apparition if you're seeing them and you
think they're real, but then they disappear, and that's a
full bodied apparition ghosts. And he's just like, I just
don't know what to think about that. I mean, I've
talked to a lot, a lot of kids have seen her,
(42:15):
and she's friendly, she's not mischievous. People have said they've
heard footsteps of it. Sounded like a little kid running around.
They've heard it in some of the rooms. I'm assuming
that might be Rebecca running around, And I think she's
just having fun in the hotel and playing with whoever
will play with her.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Do you think the hotel has ever or have you
heard of the hotel ever losing employees or like having
guests leave because of the hauntings there.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yes, I know personally two people who worked at the
hotel from Jamaica. They stayed on the Island, but they changed.
They changed to one one stayed in the same company
but moved to a restaurant, and another one changed to
a totally different company altogether. But yeah, again Superstition saw
(43:02):
something something weird happen. Man, there have been guests two
that have changed rooms. Sometimes it's pretty rare that they
leave the hotel. I've not heard of that at the Grand.
I'm sure it's happened, but I've never heard of it
at the Grand. I've heard it at some of the
other hotels, but where they'll check out and they'll just
be like, I'm done.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
It would have to be like for me to leave
the Grand. That place is very expensive. It would have
to be like a really bad ghost. I would just
be like, you do you this was eight hundred dollars tonight,
so I'm not leaving, so yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Paying for my room, I'm staying right.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
It would have to be a really bad ghost.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, you'd have to be like what was that movie
with John Cusack fourteen eighteen fourteen seventy. I remember it
was a movie where he was in the haunted room. Yes, okay,
if that happens, yes, I will check out.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Maybe then I would leave, no, but for anybody wanting
to at the Grand just because I'm always, like, you know,
I'm always looking for deals. I've learned that they send
out some really great Black Friday deals and that's when
I usually yes, there. Now I've done that two years
in a row now, and that was the That was
the key, because I was looking at some of those
prices and I was like, holy moly. But they do
(44:16):
like a get one night, get one free kind of thing.
So that's that's the time. Sign up for their emails
and you're welcome. They also have payment plans for those interested.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yes, I was gonna say they do.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
That too, but it's so worth it, like it is,
you know it is.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
There's just it's a once in a lifetime type of place,
it really is. You don't make them like that anymore. No,
I've been all over the place, and I mean, I
can't count on one hand how many places are like that.
There's nice hotels, but ones that have like professional waiters,
(44:54):
like they're training as waiters. You can't just apply and
get the job. You have to know what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
They're like everyone there is there. Their customer service is impeccable.
I love the idea of the formal dinners at night.
I do feel like it just kind of brings you
back in time quite a bit. It is very haunted,
like you can feel it. Anyone is even remotely sensitive,
you can feel it, like you know, even in our room.
There was one night I woke up and I was
(45:20):
really convinced that someone was standing on the other side
of Charlotte's bed and I got really few.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
I have to.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Look it up. It was actually a pretty big room.
I'll have to look it up, but it was.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
On yeah, because there's a few rooms that have a
lot of reports in them.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yeah, it was like the second or third flour was
in the back. We were facing kind of the forest,
not the lake, but it was kind it was like
a corner room and it's very set back. And I
woke up and I was like, is there someone standing
in our room? And I got like the hackles like
went up on the back because like immediately I was
like intruder, and that's my kid. I opened my eyes
(45:58):
wider and then it was gone like that, and I
checked the lock on it. Because I'm very paranoid. I
always make sure our hotel rooms are very locked and
I even bring extra locks usually, And I felt it
and then actually, come to think of it, we came
back to our room one afternoon and our closet doors
were both like wide open. It went the closet, you know,
(46:18):
like what are those called.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Armoire or arm orre.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
They were both like wide open, and everything had been
nobody had come to clean or anything. And so just
like little things like that.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
There's a lot of that in the hotel. Yeah, no question.
I've heard of people having things move across, Like they'll
put their glasses on the table night stand right next
to the bed when they go to sleep. They wake
up the next day, they never got out of bed,
the glasses aren't there. The glasses are sitting on a
table by the door, or they're sitting in the bathroom,
or they're sitting I mean, furniture sliding in the middle
(46:51):
of the night, just a boost like something bumped it,
welcome up. I mean, just weird things like TV changing channels.
I know how that can happen right on its own
that somebody in another room has a similar frequency, but
just different things that have moved around in their rooms.
Like yeah, ar Mars opening closet doors opening hangars falling
(47:12):
down in a closet for no reason in the middle
of the night. I mean, I've heard a lot of
different weird stories of things that have happened.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Well, I'm going to pay extra attention when we go
back this summer because I just now that I've researched
it so thoroughly and.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
I'm just really looking forward to it. Now. How can
people find you, Todd?
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I know you've got a bunch of books and your
ghost tours going on, so people want to see Todd.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
How do they see you?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Hantsamacina dot com. That's our website. Website's not that great.
We're supposed to rehabit, but we haven't gotten to it yet.
But we do Haunted Walking tours almost usually every night,
depends how many tour guides we have working, but we'll
do tours every night, seven nights a week from early
May to almost the end of October, and sometimes do
(47:59):
extra tours. We started a new tour last fall just
to try it out, where we bring like equipment with us.
We let you bring your equipment and we stop in
some spots that we have had tons of sightings and
and things going on, so they get a chance to
try out actual ghost hunting. It's not full of those hunting,
but it's a way to try it in a place
that we are just like, yeah, we've got things happening
(48:21):
right here.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
I like that a lot.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
And then I have the two books. They're on Amazon.
Amazon just actually emailed me. They're running out, so if
there's any left, I'm shipping more soon. The Island Bookstore
is like our second home. That's where we start the tours. Now.
We kind of partnered up with them to do the
tours out of there. You can get the books there.
There's all kinds of your books there by the.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Way, Oh nice, Who to Die For?
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Is there? So? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Oh yeah, I went looking for it over the summer
or yeah, that was it.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
They don't carry many copies because they're a small bookstore.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
I was going to sign it for them, but they
had just sold it and I was like, oh okay,
but they therefore I had to get more in. But well,
that's awesome. I do want to tell a quick story
because this is one I don't know remember we told
it when we did the Vacana Island one. But it
does have to do with the grand It's not ghostly
but I'm sure you remember this very well. So Strange
Escapes we do events on mcinaw here and there. We're
(49:16):
going to hopefully come back this fall. We did for
the first couple of years, we would do a barbecue
up at the Fort.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
And in order.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
To do the barbecue up at the Fort, the Grand
Hotel has to cater it because they are the catering
partner there. They actually have a cafe there now and everything, right,
and so we went to go have our barbecue and
it was pouring rain and and so the Grand Hotel
did not know what to do with us, and it
(49:46):
was dinner time, and so they ended up they ended
up letting us all into the hotel right at dinner time.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
There's all these ghost hunters.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
With all of their like ghosts shirts like we all had.
We all had those crazy like park like you know,
those like those big plasta those ponchos. We were in ponchos.
We trudge into the hotel and on that they rushed
(50:18):
us through the lobby so fast and they put us
back in that event room and.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Closed the doors. Yeah, they put us in the terrace
room and they just closed the doors as quickly as
they could they couldn't. They couldn't hide us fast enough.
But it was such a good.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
We were all wearing like street clothes and it's dinner time.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
It was like dinner time, and we were stopping what
we'd walked the you know, it's half a mile or
whatever it is from downtown.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
It's about a half a mile, almost half a mile.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
So I'll never forget that.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
And that was I never felt like that before, where
they were just like, oh my god, get these people
through her.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
They were horrified.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
I don't like this. We didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
But they're also they're lovely and they've been nothing but
great to me when we've been there, and I've talked
to them many times.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
So yeah, they do. They did a haunted trail this
past October and it was actually I was better, and
I thought it would be. I was actually surprised and
it took a long time to go through.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Yeah, they seem to be kind of getting into it,
you know, so I think they are. That's why I
was meeting with them. So we'll see what happens. But anyways,
thank you so much Todd for joining. It's great to
have you back. I will see you at the Great
Lakes Ghostly Weekend this August.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
When guests visit the Grand Hotel they see a historic building,
filled with splashes of bold colors and surrounded by a lush,
green and peaceful landscape. But those visitors who come in
the hopes of getting in touch with nature might find
themselves connecting with something more unexpected, the world of the supernatural.
I'm Amy Brunei and this was Haunted Road High Haunted Roadies.
(52:05):
I wanted to provide a bit of an addendum to
this episode. I know Todd and I talked about my
touring the Grand Hotel and how the hotels seemed to
be open to me having one of my paranormal retreats there. Well,
since the recording of this episode, I heard back from them.
Now I need to stress that the staff and the
hotel are absolutely lovely, and I have a trip booked
(52:27):
there for this summer and probably every summer after that
because it's one of my favorite places. I'd also like
distress that no one owes us access to haunted locations. Okay,
but that being said, I think they're a little worried
about having.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
A ghostly reputation.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
They very politely declined the retreat at this time. But
I'm certainly not giving up on them yet. Maybe one
day they'll come around. Haunted r Road is a production
of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Haunted
(53:05):
Road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney, with
additional research by Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited
and produced by supervising producer Rima el Kali, with executive
producers Aaron Menke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. Learn more
about this show over at Grimandmild dot com, and for
(53:26):
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Minky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener, discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
A few years back, I was sitting in what may
have been the most beautiful hotel I had ever laid
eyes on. To be honest, I wasn't a guest, but
I walked in like I was one, trying not to
catch anyone's attention. I sidled up to the first bar
I saw, and sat and ordered a glass of wine
so I could fully absorb my surroundings. The hotel was
(00:36):
positively lush with color, and clearly there was a dress code,
because all the women were in dresses and the men
in jackets. Thankfully, i'd gotten the memo beforehand, but I'd
also gotten the memo that this hotel was haunted. Built
in the late eighteen hundreds, ghost stories have been told
about it for decades. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued. Point blank,
(01:00):
asked the bartender, is this hotel haunted? She looked at me,
quite literally, like she had seen a ghost. She looked
back and forth as if to see if anyone was
within earshot, and she leaned in close to me and
whispered I'm not supposed to talk about it, but yes,
I won't even walk back to the employee housing alone again.
(01:23):
She looked around and quickly said, that's all I can say.
So of course I had to know more. Why don't
we learn together? Come with me Haunted roadies as we
journey to the Grand Hotel on mckinaw Island. I'm Amy Bruney,
and this is Haunted Road. Mckinaw Island is a small
(01:45):
isle in Michigan's Lake Huron. It spans just under four
square miles. You can reach it a few ways via
a fifteen minute ferry ride or by charter plane, but
there are no bridges or roads that would let you
drive or walk there. The only other option is to
wait until the lake freeze is solid enough that you
can cross it by snowmobile. Sounds terrifying. If you venture
(02:08):
out to Mackinaw, you'll find largely untouched wilderness, as over
eighty percent of the land is a state park. While
you can shop for homemade fudge or other gifts, for
the most part, businesses and homes are hard to come by.
Only about five hundred people live on the island full time,
but on top of one grassy treelined one hundred foot
(02:30):
tall bluff, an expansive, five story hotel stands. It's a
grand white building that combines Queen Anne and colonial revival elements.
This building, called the Grand Hotel, is one of the
last remaining wood frame hotels in the United States, and
it's no surprise that it's still standing. It's made of
(02:52):
white pine from Michigan. According to the hotel's February fourteenth,
nineteen eighty nine National Register of Historic Places form, this
kind of pine is known as the wood eternal because
it's so sturdy. A six hundred and sixty foot long
porch runs the hotel's exterior, dotted with numerous two story
(03:13):
tall white columns. They're capped with a green roof. A
cupola rises from the center of the building, and it
holds an American flag. The outside is deceiving. The classic
white exterior houses a colorful and boldly patterned interior. Red
armchairs rest on a green checkered carpet that features alternating
(03:35):
ruby circles and lime green squares. The dining room can
hold eight hundred people, meaning mckinaw's entire population could eat
there and still have open seats. And in keeping with
the hotel's tendency toward bright colors, it has bold green
and white striped chairs. The ceiling is a slightly tamer
(03:55):
shade of mint green, and the three hundred and ninety
seven guest rooms feature pink, blue and green wallpaper in
floral prints or stripes, and equally garish bedding. The bold
hues are everywhere because one former owner banned the use
of beige during a renovation, so you can't escape bright
shades and patterns in the thirteen restaurants and bars, or
(04:18):
the pool, the golf course, tennis courts, or meditation gardens.
A reporter once tried to put the hotel's unique design
elements into words in her article with the Wall Street Journals.
She wrote, imagine if the Mad Hatter had trained as
an interior designer. That's what the Grand Hotel looks like today.
(04:39):
But if you were to travel back in time to
the eighteenth century, this area would have had a very
different appearance. According to the island's official blog, the indigenous
Anishinovic people saw Mackinaw as a sacred refuge, and it
was also where they buried their dead. The name Mackinaw
comes from a word their people used. It translates into
(05:02):
English as place of the great Turtle. In the sixteen hundreds,
the first Europeans set foot on Mackinaw Island, and afterward
it developed but slowly. The British military built a fort
there in seventeen eighty. Then it spent some time as
a fur trading out post, but by the post Civil
War era the island was a tourist destination. Its pristine
(05:26):
wilderness was a big draw for those who wanted to
escape the bustle of city living. Its northern climate was
also appealing to people fleeing the summer heat. In an
effort to preserve Mckinaw's natural beauty and avoid congestion, the
island banned all cars in eighteen ninety eight. The band
still stands today, so if you're thinking of visiting, be
(05:48):
prepared to walk, bike, or hire a horse drawn taxi. However,
before the band passed, another major development came about with
the influx of tourists. It was only natural for the
Central Railroad, the Indiana Railroad, and the Cleveland Steamship Navigation
Company to find ways to keep drawing travelers to Mackinaw.
(06:09):
After all, those visitors also brought business to their companies,
so they cooperated to finance a hotel on the island.
Construction crews broke ground in the spring of eighteen eighty seven. Reportedly,
over the course of the three month long construction period,
the workers kept uncovering grave after grave, those of both
(06:32):
humans and animals. Sophie Boudreau wrote on Only in Your
State website that the teams found too many bones for
the crews to keep track of. The workers were so
overwhelmed that at one point they stopped trying to keep
track of all the graves they'd uncovered. Instead, they ignored
the tombs, choosing to literally build the hotel on top
(06:54):
of them. Now I have not been able to verify
that claim. Some people believe that the story about the
burial plot under the hotel is little more than an
urban legend, but it is worth mentioning that the indigenous
people did in fact bury their dead on the island
for centuries, and it's not uncommon for construction projects on
mckinaw to uncover ancient graves even to this day. Whether
(07:19):
the hotel was literally built on the bones of the
deceased or not, it quickly gained a reputation as a
premier vacation destination. Originally it was called Planck's Grand Hotel,
but with time the structure came to be known simply
as the Grand Hotel. Guests came when they were looking
for a quiet place to relax, a place where they
(07:40):
could sit on the porch, enjoying a cool breeze off
the straits of Mackinaw and maybe take in a lecture.
Mark Twain spoke there in the late eighteen hundreds, as
did one of Thomas Edison's employees. He was there to
show off Edison's latest invention, the phonograph. Over the years,
the Grand Hotel has boasted many rich and famous guests,
(08:01):
including multiple US presidents and Madonna. It has been designated
as a National Historic Landmark since nineteen eighty nine, which
was two years after its hundredth birthday. But in the
midst of all these celebrations and milestones, darkness lurked. See
A woman named Lilian Salter was working as a chambermaid
(08:22):
at the Grand Hotel in July of eighteen ninety three.
She'd only been at the job for a few weeks
and was living in the employee housing on site. On
the night of the thirteenth, she decided to attend a
dance elsewhere on the island. There she met a man,
a soldier named Will Badgeley. He offered to walk her home,
(08:42):
and Lilian accepted his chivalry, perhaps thinking he'd keep her safe. Sadly,
there was no one to keep her safe from Will,
who sexually assaulted her on the way to the hotel.
Lilian put up a vicious fight, leaving Will with visible
injuries on his face, but it wasn't enough to stop
the attack. She survived the rape, but was too distraught
(09:06):
and ashamed to tell anyone what had happened to her. Afterward,
she spent a few days trying to live her life
like normal, but by July seventeenth, her trauma was becoming
too great to bear. Sadly, she took her own life.
We only know about the sexual assault and the toll
it took on her mental health because Lilian left behind
(09:27):
two suicide notes. One was addressed to her aunt and
the other was an open letter. In both of the messages,
she explained what had happened to her and named her attacker.
She also asked to be buried with the photo of
her fiance which she'd been holding in her hands at
the time of her death. On the strength of the
testimony in her note, the police arrested and charged William.
(09:51):
He denied having anything to do with Lilian, but his
guilt was clear from the scratches and bruises on his face.
The public was so outraged that several people threatened William's life.
It was impossible for him to stand trial on Mackinaw Island,
so the case was transferred to the mainland. There, he
was found guilty and sentenced to eight years of hard labor.
(10:14):
As for Lilian, it's said that her spirit still walks
the grounds of the Grand Hotel. According to witnesses, she
strolls up and down the beach outside, a reminder of
the violence that stains the hotel's history. She's just one
of many ghosts that are said to haunt this area.
The hotel is only open for about half of the year,
(10:36):
from May to late October, but during those months guests
often hear disembodied footsteps and voices. Doors are known to
open and close on their own, and the dining room
and the hallways outside the guest rooms are both good
locations to stab a picture if you're looking to catch
some sort of an anomaly on film. A spectral man
(10:57):
in a top hat is often spotted in the bar
near the piano. Eyewitnesses have seen him smoking a cigar,
and occasionally guests can smell the tobacco smoke even when
he isn't visible. In the hallways and guest rooms, a
Victorian era woman dressed all in white is seen pacing about,
and occasionally she tries to climb into bed with unsuspecting
(11:20):
employees who live in the staff quarters. There have also
been reports of a pair of ghostly soldiers on the grounds.
As unnerving as all of that is, the most frightening
accounts feature a spirit that's said to dwell in the
Grand Hotels theater. It's also according to rumor evil. This
figure looks like a dark figure or cloud, and sometimes
(11:43):
it has two red eyes. Those who have seen the
entity insist that it has no arms, legs, or face. However,
it is vaguely human in size and silhouette. According to
Sophie Boudreaux, on one occasion, a group of maintenance workers
had to do a project in the theater. They were
part of the way through their task when one of
them sensed something eerie. He glanced up from what he
(12:07):
was doing to see the shadowy entity standing right beside him,
glaring with those glowing red eyes. Before the worker could
run away or scream, the shadow figure rushed forward. He
hit the man so hard that he was knocked unconscious.
It said that he needed to stay in a hospital
for two full days before he recovered, and afterward he
(12:28):
refused to ever set foot inside ever again. That said,
many of the spirits there are friendly, or at the
very least they're not violent. One such entity is a
little girl who's been dubbed Rebecca. According to rumors, she
was once a guest at the hotel until she tragically
fell through a window and died.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
From the fall.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
These days, her ghost is known to pace the hallways
every night between two am and four am. Another woman
is often spotted on the porch, dressed head totie and
black and walking a large white dog. Rumor goes that
she's also a former guest, a woman who checked in
one day in eighteen ninety one. She was clearly wealthy
(13:10):
based on the footmen and maid she brought with her,
but that's all anyone knew about her for the duration
of her stay, she stayed in her room with the
door closed. She refused to leave or to interact with
the other guests, with a few notable exceptions. Her story
was recorded in Haunts of Mackinaw, ghost Stories, Legends and
Tragic Tales of Mckinaw Island by Todd Clemens. He wrote
(13:32):
that the woman in Black only ventured from her room
three times a day. Every day, she walked her white
Russian bloodhound at eight a m. Noon and seven pm.
And finally, at the end of her visit, she checked
out and never returned. Supposedly, on that day, a large
blackbird also sat on a perch just outside her window,
(13:52):
like some kind of omen. Now I need to acknowledge
that I wasn't able to verify many of those details.
It's in possible to say if a reclusive woman in
black did check into the Grand Hotel that year. But
if there is any truth to the story, it fits
with what we know about the spirit. If anyone tries
to point her out or draw attention to her in
(14:13):
any way, she'll disappear in an instant, as though she's
just as shy in death as she was in life.
This woman isn't the only spirit whose history is shrouded
in mystery and unverified conjecture. But the hotel's history is
still worth investigating even if we never uncover the full truth.
That's why I'm talking to the aforementioned Todd Clements. He's
(14:36):
an expert on all things spooky on Mackinaw Island and
this is his second time on the show that is
coming up after the break. Okay, everyone, I am now
(14:57):
joined by my friend Todd Clements. And Todd actually heads
up Haunts of Mackinaw on Macinaw Island, and he is
an expert in all things Macanaw, not just historically but
ghostly as well, so I figured he was the perfect
person to talk to the Grand Hotel or talk about
(15:18):
the Grand Hotel too. So welcome to the program again, Todd.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Thank you again for having me. Glad to be back.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, it was I think it was a few years ago.
I had to have been twenty twenty one. I think
maybe twenty two. You were my first like live yeah,
my first live Haunted road episode.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
We did it at Michigan per.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Con and that one we talked about the island as
a whole as opposed to kind of singling out specific
locations and I really so I featured the Grand Hotel
in my cookbook.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
We featured their recipe for.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Their like they're known for their pecan balls their dessert there,
so we featured that recipe and I really got to
dig into the history and the hauntings there and I
was like, this is a whole episode of Haunted Roads.
So thank you for that. I think really the first
time I realized, well, you can just look at that
hotel and you're like, there's got to be ghosts there.
(16:13):
But I remember Adam and I went there for a
drink years ago while we were there for a Strained
Escapes and we asked one of the seasonal employees. We
were like, you know, is this place haunted? And you know,
she basically was like, I don't like to talk about it,
(16:33):
but you don't know what we deal with in employee housing,
like that area in particular was very spooky. So how
do you think the Grand handles their hauntings in general?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Well, generally they don't want to talk about it. It's
a policy at the hotel. Things are changing, but their
general policy was we're not haunted. Plus, speaking with someone
who is from Jamaica, a lot of the islanders, or
a lot of the workers on the island from Jamaica
are very s perstitious. But anything that has to do
with ghosts see occult very voodoo minded. They don't. They're
(17:06):
always worried about it. And between those two things is
probably why she's I'm not talking about this.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, she was seasonal and she's It's funny. I've seen
her now a few times since, Like she always works
in that that great little bar that's outside of like
the main dining room area. So over the summer for
the first time ever, like, I've always dreamed of staying
at the Grand Hotel, and so this year, kind of
knowing that was gonna be the last year of Michigan
per con I I think I booked, Like in the fall,
(17:35):
I booked two nights at the Grand Hotel for my
daughter and I just to experience it because I wasn't
sure i'd be back in that area. It turns out
I am going back, but I was really excited to
actually stay there, and I did some investigating in my
room and I live streamed some of it actually with
the Paranormal Circle folks who are in the Panormal Circle,
(17:57):
and it was really interesting. We did get some I'm
like gradyvps. She and I investigated later at night and
we got a lot of interaction with some of our equipment.
Who do you think is haunting that hotel?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Overall?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
It's not one, pretty sure that we know, there's several.
We also know there's some residual haunts at the hotel.
We don't know exactly which when it happened, but there's
one of those. But I would say the most common
that I hear of would be strange things in rooms, obviously,
(18:31):
But there is someone we called and we don't know
their actual name, the bear man whoa We have a
girl named Rebecca, and there's a security guard or a
maintenance worker that people have instances with. And then there's
the woman in black. Those are the ones that we
know about. There's possibly more than that. And then there's
(18:54):
a residual party that just keeps on going on into eternity.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
That is very Shining esque. Like that sounds very much
like the show.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Oh yeah, it's very much. Yeah, that's what I thought
when I first heard it. I was like, they pull
on my leg and then I've heard the story of
the party. It's it's all sound. You don't see anything.
You just hear it. You can almost feel it through
the floorboards. But it happens in the middle of the night.
If you want me, I can share it. I'll share
the story of the right.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, please, I want to hear about that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
So if you're staying in the rooms that are above
the main dining room, right above the main dining room,
and sometime in the middle of the night, most people
say it wakes them up, and it's if they're with
someone else, they boat. They all hear it. Everybody in
the room will hear it. And you'll hear like big
band music, snare, drums and horns and all these noises,
(19:47):
and you hear this chatter of people talking. You hear
glasses and plates clinking together, and just a party. It's
a loud band, people talking, drinking, having party. This is
like three four o'clock in the morning or something like
that in the dining room right below their room. And
some of them have gone down obviously throw their slippers
(20:09):
on and or call down to the front desk, what's
going on. Why is there so much noise coming from
the dining room. It's empty. The ones who have gone
down there to see what's going on. Say, the velvet
rope is up, the room is completely and it is
a big dining room.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
You've been there, It's huge. Yeah, it's massive.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It's huge. The lights are out, you can't see anything.
It's at least two hundred yards two hundred yards long
at least. It's enormous, and it's completely black. There's nothing
going on. And then they'll go back up to the room.
They can still hear it, and then all of a sudden,
it just fades and disappears. So they hear this party
(20:49):
going on. And I've heard this story from so many
guests that I'm just like, I don't know how to
explain other than that it's a residual haunt of something
that got trapped in time.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I'm gonna I'm gonna look for it because so I
had so much fun last year, and my daughter loved
it so much. They've redone their pool just unrelated to
anything we're talking about right now, but it is one
of the best hotel pools I've ever been to. It's
so beautiful, and so she it has a water side.
She dreams of that pool, and so she already asked me,
(21:21):
because we're going back. We have a conference uh in
Sue Saint Marie this summer? Was it Great Lakes Ghosts.
What's it called that we're doing?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I know you're.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I'm doing it too. I know. Oh it's something presented
by a Michigan paricon.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, it's presented con something. I will look it up
at some point before. But it's like the Great Lakes, Oh,
Great Lakes Ghostly Weekend. So anyways, it's in August for
anyone who wants to join us. We're going to be
in Sue Saint Marie and we're investigating the Valley camp,
which we've done an episode on and things. So it's
gonna be so much fun and it's amazing and it's
(21:57):
very close to Macana, so you can visit.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
That being said, let me come back to this.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I booked us again for this summer, so Charlotte and
I can go again. And I am going to investigate this.
I need to find out of this, like ghostly party happens.
I'm going to try to request a room above the
dining room.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Sometimes it's just luck of the draw you get those rooms.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah, So I'm going to see what I can do.
But like I am intent on investigating it.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I have to kind of throw back.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So the first time I went to Macana Island, it
was January. Do not recommend of twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, I remember that. It was twenty seven degrees below
zero one night.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Oh my god, it was so cold, and like I
just remember, I actually ended up having the best time
it was. You know, you were there for a lot
of it. Steve and Dave and Adam and I. We
stayed on the island the whole time for like two weeks,
and it got to this point where like every night
we would we would go to the one of two
restaurants that were still open. We knew all the locals
(22:58):
by the end of it. Every night we'd sit in
the lobby of the hotel we were staying at. We
would drink wine and play Liverpool Rummy until like two am.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So it ended up being a very good memory. But
it was very cool. But that was the first time
I saw the Grand Hotel because you I was, I
feel like, it.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Was like one in the morning and I was liked,
take me to.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
The Grand Hotel. So you took me.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, they were at the bar and then I had
I had a snowmobile and you like I got to
see the Grand Hotel and I was like, well, crap,
might as well got me. You got a snowmobile. It's
not that bad if you're on a snowmobile.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
No, it would have.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Been in a night Mirre, Oh it would have been.
And we did it. It was probably not the smartest thing,
but people knew where we were going, so that was
good but true. It was a full moon and I
remember we just took the snowmobile up all the way
to the front of that hotel and I could just
feel there was something like magical about that place or
(23:53):
just it just.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
It feels like it's staring at you.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
It did. It felt like everybody says.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
It feels like the hotel stares at you.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
That was it.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It definitely I got this vibe like it was like
the whole hotel was like we are not expecting guests
right now. You know, this kind of energy came off
of it. It seems it felt like people were looking
at us out the windows. I remember feeling like we're
going to get in trouble.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Uh. It just really put off that vibe.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
So want I always wonder, like, what do you think
is going on in there in the middle of winter
when it's all shut down quiet.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There's some people there, but not many, and they're not
there all the time.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, have they had any reports that come out of
there during that time period, because I feel like there
would be.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
I've talked to a few people who've worked like winter
maintenance or security on the ground and they said they, yes,
there's no question. You always feel like there's something around you.
You hear noises that you shouldn't hear. You think you
see somebody duck around a corner and you know you
saw somebody, but you go run to see who it is.
(25:02):
There's nobody there. There's nobody in the hallway. There's no
way they could get into anything where they could just
disappear like that. And they're just like, yeah, it's got things.
But I mean, someone will say, you know, I don't
believe in all that, but there's that one time, and
I'm just like, well, then you believe in it because
you have that one time. But some of the most
common things they say is they hear footsteps. The key
(25:26):
ring that's a common one, is a ring of keys,
and then they also just see things that they'll think
they saw something at the end of a hallway, and
the hallways there are very very long. It's very much
like the movie The Shining, but it's not the same hotel.
It's just the hallways go on forever, and they think
(25:46):
they see somebody standing at the end of the hallway,
and then they duck into another hallway and they run
down there to see who's in the hotel. There's nobody there.
So there's some activity definitely year round going on in.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
The hotel, I would feel, I mean, and it does
have that kind of shining by people always think, well,
any hotel like that, people think that's where The Shining
was filmed, and I always have to be like, The
Shining was filmed in a sound stage. It was not
filmed in an actual hotel. It was not filmed at
the Stage.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Hotel in Washington, Oregon. Yeah, and which is still there.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
It is still there. I think it's called the Overlook,
but I might be or Timberline.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I can't remember, but I think it's Timberline.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Timberline Overlook is.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah, the Shining, which is the Stanley. Yeah, but but
it wasn't the Stanley Exceptely mini series was. So we're
just clearing this all up here of folks.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, making sure right now, it wasn't. It wasn't Grand Hotel,
and it wasn't Mission Point Resort on mac An Island,
which I've heard a million times. I'm like, they don't
even look the same.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
What do you even know?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
They say them out Washington too, and I have to
correct people. My favorite is when people argue with me
on it and I'm like, I am sorry, but if
anyone knows, it's me, so okay. But that being said,
so I met with the hotel this last summer when
I was there, and they told me that they are
doing a lot of remodeling this season for this summer.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, they have been for the past two three years.
They have new owners.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Well, it sounds like they're gonna redecorate between now and opening,
and they're gonna because, like right now it is, it
has this very iconic decor inside that I believe happened
in like the seventies. It's bright green, stated Yeah, it's
bright green, it's bright red.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It's very like flots of floral. I love it.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I think it is so it makes for really just
striking photos and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
But it sounds like they're.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Going to try to keep some of that like kind of,
like I said, iconic decor style, but they're going to
change it up or maybe even like modernize it a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
What I've heard is that the main areas, like common
the traffic areas where the guests move in and out
and about, they're going to kind of spruce that up.
I heard they're keeping some of the suites they're not touching,
but some of the rooms are going to be converted
to a little more modern. Someone are still going to
stay with that old world look to them, so they're
(28:21):
just to think they're just gonna kind of pepper it
in with new and old.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I'm just wondering what do you think that's going to
do to the haunting there? Do you think that's going
to affect things when guests arrive this summer? Do you
think it's going to be more more active than normal?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I yes and no. Yes that whenever something changes, activity
always tends to go up. Not so sure because it's
not their home. I don't think anybody would call it.
I always find that if it's a house that's hein remodeled,
you get more activity than if it's like a general
(28:57):
public location, just because it's not like, you're changing my home.
What are you doing where in the general public location,
they're more like, oh, well that's different, but this isn't
my home. It's hard to I guess if that explains it.
I do expect activity to go. Also the fact that
now people are starting to go there and look around
(29:18):
more for everything. Maybe something wants to say, hey, here,
I've been trying to get in touch with you guys
for over one hundred years, but you're finally listening.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
It's interesting there because even when it's sold out, like
when we stayed, it was sold out, and so during
the day it's very busy because there are a lot
of people that are on the island that are like,
you know, if they're staying at other hotels or they're
coming to the island for the day and they want
to visit the hotel and you have to pay ten
dollars and you can come in and walk around and whatever.
I always made it my goal to not pay the
ten dollars though, But there's a trick.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
There's a trick.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
But five or six pm, Yeah, you don't have to pay,
but you do have to wear a tie and a
jacket or a dress.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
To get Yeah, there is a dress code. They're very strict.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Around unless you go up to the coop La Bar,
which is the one that's at the top, you can
wear whatever you want. And I'll be honest, on my
way home from work downtown up the hill, that's my
pit stop with some dreads LUs we go up there
dressed in regular clothes, just on our way home because
we love.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
The coople Of bar. The view up there is amazing.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
So but what I oh, I'm getting out is that
during so during the day it's busy because everyone's in there,
but then at night, even with the sold out hotel,
it quiets down incredibly because everyone is off the island
by a certain point and everyone's.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Back at their hotels.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
And so especially once dinner is done, because I think
dinner goes into like no, it's very formal, everything like
you can't like. Unfortunately, my child, she's a big tomboy.
She was so mad she had to wear a dress.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
So I'm sure she just had a great time.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
She loved the pool. She did not like the dress code.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
What I'm getting at is that it's very easy at
the end of everything, you know, after ten o'clock to
really walk around and absorb the hotel and get into
you know, you can walk into some common areas or
public spaces where I feel like it would be really
easy to sneak in some investigating. So have you heard
of anyone do that of doing that?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yes, I can't name names, but yes, it's always off
the books. It's always you have a room at the hotel,
or you might have just stopped there with some equipment
that happened to be in a bag and nobody around.
So let's ask a few questions see if anything happens.
They do lock off some of the better areas. Some
(31:41):
of them are some of the areas that I think
there's going to be more activity because it really hasn't
been investigated very much because it's been hands off. There's
a few rooms that, obviously I think there might be
something going on. It's hit or miss if some of
the rooms in the building are unlocked or not if
you beek in there at night. There's the terrace room,
(32:03):
the theater, the dining room, the private rooms. I mean,
there's a lot of little nooks and crannies a place
people have reported things and there is security there that
walks around twenty four hours a day. Seven days a week,
not three hundred and sixty five days a year. But
in the winter they're they're checking doors and doing everything.
(32:25):
I think they do four checks a day.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
I mean so talking with you know, kind of touring
the hotel and stuff this summer, I was talking to
some of the employees. They had a lot to say
about the theater ghost wise.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And then there's also a room.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
I feel like it's when you go into like that
kind of main lobby area and you know how you
walk up these those little steps and there's like a
sitting area up there, those big doors, and behind that
there's another events space or like dining.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
They don't I think it's changed names, but we call
it the Terrasts Room. I think still the Terrors.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Oh good, So that she was very much like that room.
That is where we get so many reports of things happening.
What happens in there paranormally speaking, like what reports come
out of that room?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Have you heard of anything?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
There's reports? But yeah, I'm a person who like either
I have to hear it a hundred times from one
hundred people who don't know each other, or I have
to see it myself.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
No, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
There's reports of figures just moving around in the room
in the corners. There was a report once of someone
who walked in to do like cleaning, and there was
a man dressed in a suit but not of today,
like an old timy suit, sitting in the corner at
a table, feed up on the table and a hat
(33:48):
next to his feet. And as soon as she like
she saw him, and then she was like what and
then it was gone. So you don't know if they're
been working too hard or they actually saw sitting in
the room. Serious, but terrace room, I don't. I hear rumors, yeah,
but then again, I've never had a chance to actually investigate.
(34:10):
That's one of the rooms that is either under lock
and key or security or it's busy. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
I thought it was interesting that they volunteered that information
to me, And I was like, hmmm, how many like
the hauntings in the hotel, how many of those do
you think are maybe caused by things that happened before
the hotel was even built, Because there was clearly a
lot of violence on the island before the Grand even existed.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So the Grand was built if they started construction eighteen
eighty six, it was done in eighteen eighty seven. One
of the things I don't know if you'd mentioned, but
when they went to build the foundations for this hotel,
they picked the Great Spot. Obviously you can see it
everywhere and it has a great view. But when they
(34:57):
went to put the foundations in coming across human remains,
and then more and more and more. It was Native
American and they found tons and tons of these these
sets of human remains that nobody knows what happened two
of those remains. Most likely back then the world was
a different place. People have to remember. History isn't always kind.
(35:20):
They probably threw them in the lake, that's what most
or they put them in a landfill. Nobody knows where
it happened to them. But that's just back then, that
was just kind of what it was. It was glorified
garbage to them at the time. We don't do it
that way anymore. Obviously on the island. Things some times
have changed. But back then that's how they did it,
because you would come across bones everywhere on the island,
(35:42):
But there was a concentration in that one spot where
Grand Hotel sits. Some say they just stopped moving them
and they just built built through them, and there was
still more there when they were building it. So Grant
Hotel in most of mac And Island is a cemetery,
so most people don't think of that, but it was
(36:03):
this magn Island was like secret land to many of
the tribes. It was their garden of Eden. It was
where man began. It was where geechee Manitou, which is
their great one of the great gods, or the great
God for most of the tribes, that's where he said
it's time for man, and he created man.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
And I can see why they would think that, like
it is just this, it is this otherworldly place.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
And there's part of me that feels as though the
reason why hauntings are so prevalent there and and at
the Grand as well, is this because it's kind of
purposely frozen in time. You know, there's no cars, the houses,
you know, they don't really allow building. The houses are
(36:50):
all older. It literally is like stepping back in a
time machine. And it makes me wonder if just like
that's comforting to some of those spirits. And you know,
I've talked a lot about hotels and how I don't
necessarily think everybody just haunts their houses. But I do
think they come back to places that were important to
them in life, you know, And the Grand Hotel is
the site of how many you know, weddings and celebrations
(37:14):
and family vacations and beautiful memories, and so it makes
me wonder if some of these spirits are people just
kind of coming back in the afterlife to like relive
their memories and it hasn't changed, which is like so magical.
Do you think that affects very much?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Same? Yeah, I think it does. I mean, there are
people who are so passionate about that island, and everybody
that is like that, I want to live here, and
then they see the price tag for double.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
In January and they'll change their minds for.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
A double wide trailer. Yeah, it's not a cheap place.
And then as soon as January hits, they're like, get
me out of here. It's freaking cold. And I gave
me there's no boats because when the lake freezes, the
boat stop.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
I had to fly off the island. I learned that lesson.
It was quite an experience.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Let me just y, we have better we have better planes. Now.
A new company came in. I'm glad because It was.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
The most terrifying twelve minutes of my life.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Yes, when you see duct tape where a bolt should be,
you start to go it's just see.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
But I was almost planting back on an island. I
would have gone straight back to that. My ghost would
have gone back to the Grand.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
But yeah, there's a lot of attachment to the island.
I'm sure that that island that all the those are cottages,
all the houses on the island, almost none of them
are year round residents. There might be like four on
the entire island. And like the big Ones, there's there's
an area village in the middle of the woods that
most tourists never see, but that area is year round
(38:56):
people and there's usually four hundred and fifty to five
hundred people who stay there winter, families, kids, stay of
a schools. It's just small.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I met a woman there when we were there filming,
and she told me like she rarely left the island,
so she stayed there all some or all winter rather.
But then one winter she broke her arm, and so
she said, the first time she ever was on an
airplane was she had to be flown off the island
to get her arm treated. So she literally just never left.
(39:29):
She was there all She was like, I rarely ever
left the island, and she said, finally I had to
leave on a little puddle jumper with my broken arm.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
The longest I've ever talked to anybody who's been on
island and not left the island is eight years.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I mean they didn't leave the island for eight years.
And I was like, I don't think I could do that. Congratulations,
I don't think I could stand. I mean, it's a
beautiful place. It's not super small, but it's small. I mean,
e I guess, yeah, you work, you do this, you
do that. You got restaurants, you got grocery store, you
(40:04):
got what you needed, and you can have anything else delivered.
So it's possible. But I don't know. I'd go stir
crazy in eight years.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
So what do you say?
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Is probably the most frequently spotted apparition at the Grand
spotted Rebecca.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
It's a girl. I'm sure she's the one who's the
most seen apparition where you can actually see her.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Is she a little girl?
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Or yeah, she's I've heard between eight and twelve years old.
So I usually have people ask us say she's around ten.
We know the story of Rebecca. We're pretty sure the
name is Rebecca. But what happened was in the nineteen fifties.
She was on vacation with her family. She was sitting there,
(40:50):
apparently on the fourth floor. She was leaning against a
window screen in the room and the screen popped out.
She didn't survive the fall, and she wanders around. She
interacts with kids. Very very rarely will an adult have
a story of Rebecca. And usually it's kids that will
(41:11):
tell me the story of the mom will drag the
kid up when I'm doing a book signing or something,
be like, tell him what you saw at the hotel?
Tell him. So they'll tell me, Yeah, it's a lot
of them are in the hallway. Most of them are
in hallways. They would just be like, there was this
girl and she was peeking around the corner, and then
she stepped out, and she's wearing an old dress. And
(41:32):
when it's like she wanted to play hide and seek
her tag and if I went after her, she would
she took off and then she was gone. And then
another kid was telling me about she had a ball
and she tossed the ball at him and he was
watching the ball, and the ball disappeared, never made it
to his hands. He looks up, she's not there, and
he's like, no, I'm I'm sure one hundred percent she
(41:53):
was real. She wasn't like, she wasn't a ghost. She
was a real girl. And I was like, Okay, that's
a full bodied apparition if you're seeing them and you
think they're real, but then they disappear, and that's a
full bodied apparition ghosts. And he's just like, I just
don't know what to think about that. I mean, I've
talked to a lot, a lot of kids have seen her,
(42:15):
and she's friendly, she's not mischievous. People have said they've
heard footsteps of it. Sounded like a little kid running around.
They've heard it in some of the rooms. I'm assuming
that might be Rebecca running around, And I think she's
just having fun in the hotel and playing with whoever
will play with her.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Do you think the hotel has ever or have you
heard of the hotel ever losing employees or like having
guests leave because of the hauntings there.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yes, I know personally two people who worked at the
hotel from Jamaica. They stayed on the Island, but they changed.
They changed to one one stayed in the same company
but moved to a restaurant, and another one changed to
a totally different company altogether. But yeah, again Superstition saw
(43:02):
something something weird happen. Man, there have been guests two
that have changed rooms. Sometimes it's pretty rare that they
leave the hotel. I've not heard of that at the Grand.
I'm sure it's happened, but I've never heard of it
at the Grand. I've heard it at some of the
other hotels, but where they'll check out and they'll just
be like, I'm done.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
It would have to be like for me to leave
the Grand. That place is very expensive. It would have
to be like a really bad ghost. I would just
be like, you do you this was eight hundred dollars tonight,
so I'm not leaving, so yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Paying for my room, I'm staying right.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
It would have to be a really bad ghost.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, you'd have to be like what was that movie
with John Cusack fourteen eighteen fourteen seventy. I remember it
was a movie where he was in the haunted room. Yes, okay,
if that happens, yes, I will check out.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Maybe then I would leave, no, but for anybody wanting
to at the Grand just because I'm always, like, you know,
I'm always looking for deals. I've learned that they send
out some really great Black Friday deals and that's when
I usually yes, there. Now I've done that two years
in a row now, and that was the That was
the key, because I was looking at some of those
prices and I was like, holy moly. But they do
(44:16):
like a get one night, get one free kind of thing.
So that's that's the time. Sign up for their emails
and you're welcome. They also have payment plans for those interested.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yes, I was gonna say they do.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
That too, but it's so worth it, like it is,
you know it is.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
There's just it's a once in a lifetime type of place,
it really is. You don't make them like that anymore. No,
I've been all over the place, and I mean, I
can't count on one hand how many places are like that.
There's nice hotels, but ones that have like professional waiters,
(44:54):
like they're training as waiters. You can't just apply and
get the job. You have to know what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
They're like everyone there is there. Their customer service is impeccable.
I love the idea of the formal dinners at night.
I do feel like it just kind of brings you
back in time quite a bit. It is very haunted,
like you can feel it. Anyone is even remotely sensitive,
you can feel it, like you know, even in our room.
There was one night I woke up and I was
(45:20):
really convinced that someone was standing on the other side
of Charlotte's bed and I got really few.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
I have to.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Look it up. It was actually a pretty big room.
I'll have to look it up, but it was.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
On yeah, because there's a few rooms that have a
lot of reports in them.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yeah, it was like the second or third flour was
in the back. We were facing kind of the forest,
not the lake, but it was kind it was like
a corner room and it's very set back. And I
woke up and I was like, is there someone standing
in our room? And I got like the hackles like
went up on the back because like immediately I was
like intruder, and that's my kid. I opened my eyes
(45:58):
wider and then it was gone like that, and I
checked the lock on it. Because I'm very paranoid. I
always make sure our hotel rooms are very locked and
I even bring extra locks usually, And I felt it
and then actually, come to think of it, we came
back to our room one afternoon and our closet doors
were both like wide open. It went the closet, you know,
(46:18):
like what are those called.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Armoire or arm orre.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
They were both like wide open, and everything had been
nobody had come to clean or anything. And so just
like little things like that.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
There's a lot of that in the hotel. Yeah, no question.
I've heard of people having things move across, Like they'll
put their glasses on the table night stand right next
to the bed when they go to sleep. They wake
up the next day, they never got out of bed,
the glasses aren't there. The glasses are sitting on a
table by the door, or they're sitting in the bathroom,
or they're sitting I mean, furniture sliding in the middle
(46:51):
of the night, just a boost like something bumped it,
welcome up. I mean, just weird things like TV changing channels.
I know how that can happen right on its own
that somebody in another room has a similar frequency, but
just different things that have moved around in their rooms.
Like yeah, ar Mars opening closet doors opening hangars falling
(47:12):
down in a closet for no reason in the middle
of the night. I mean, I've heard a lot of
different weird stories of things that have happened.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Well, I'm going to pay extra attention when we go
back this summer because I just now that I've researched
it so thoroughly and.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
I'm just really looking forward to it. Now. How can
people find you, Todd?
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I know you've got a bunch of books and your
ghost tours going on, so people want to see Todd.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
How do they see you?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Hantsamacina dot com. That's our website. Website's not that great.
We're supposed to rehabit, but we haven't gotten to it yet.
But we do Haunted Walking tours almost usually every night,
depends how many tour guides we have working, but we'll
do tours every night, seven nights a week from early
May to almost the end of October, and sometimes do
(47:59):
extra tours. We started a new tour last fall just
to try it out, where we bring like equipment with us.
We let you bring your equipment and we stop in
some spots that we have had tons of sightings and
and things going on, so they get a chance to
try out actual ghost hunting. It's not full of those hunting,
but it's a way to try it in a place
that we are just like, yeah, we've got things happening
(48:21):
right here.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
I like that a lot.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
And then I have the two books. They're on Amazon.
Amazon just actually emailed me. They're running out, so if
there's any left, I'm shipping more soon. The Island Bookstore
is like our second home. That's where we start the tours. Now.
We kind of partnered up with them to do the
tours out of there. You can get the books there.
There's all kinds of your books there by the.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Way, Oh nice, Who to Die For?
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Is there? So? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Oh yeah, I went looking for it over the summer
or yeah, that was it.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
They don't carry many copies because they're a small bookstore.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
I was going to sign it for them, but they
had just sold it and I was like, oh okay,
but they therefore I had to get more in. But well,
that's awesome. I do want to tell a quick story
because this is one I don't know remember we told
it when we did the Vacana Island one. But it
does have to do with the grand It's not ghostly
but I'm sure you remember this very well. So Strange
Escapes we do events on mcinaw here and there. We're
(49:16):
going to hopefully come back this fall. We did for
the first couple of years, we would do a barbecue
up at the Fort.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
And in order.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
To do the barbecue up at the Fort, the Grand
Hotel has to cater it because they are the catering
partner there. They actually have a cafe there now and everything, right,
and so we went to go have our barbecue and
it was pouring rain and and so the Grand Hotel
did not know what to do with us, and it
(49:46):
was dinner time, and so they ended up they ended
up letting us all into the hotel right at dinner time.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
There's all these ghost hunters.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
With all of their like ghosts shirts like we all had.
We all had those crazy like park like you know,
those like those big plasta those ponchos. We were in ponchos.
We trudge into the hotel and on that they rushed
(50:18):
us through the lobby so fast and they put us
back in that event room and.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Closed the doors. Yeah, they put us in the terrace
room and they just closed the doors as quickly as
they could they couldn't. They couldn't hide us fast enough.
But it was such a good.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
We were all wearing like street clothes and it's dinner time.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
It was like dinner time, and we were stopping what
we'd walked the you know, it's half a mile or
whatever it is from downtown.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
It's about a half a mile, almost half a mile.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
So I'll never forget that.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
And that was I never felt like that before, where
they were just like, oh my god, get these people
through her.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
They were horrified.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
I don't like this. We didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
But they're also they're lovely and they've been nothing but
great to me when we've been there, and I've talked
to them many times.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
So yeah, they do. They did a haunted trail this
past October and it was actually I was better, and
I thought it would be. I was actually surprised and
it took a long time to go through.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Yeah, they seem to be kind of getting into it,
you know, so I think they are. That's why I
was meeting with them. So we'll see what happens. But anyways,
thank you so much Todd for joining. It's great to
have you back. I will see you at the Great
Lakes Ghostly Weekend this August.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
When guests visit the Grand Hotel they see a historic building,
filled with splashes of bold colors and surrounded by a lush,
green and peaceful landscape. But those visitors who come in
the hopes of getting in touch with nature might find
themselves connecting with something more unexpected, the world of the supernatural.
I'm Amy Brunei and this was Haunted Road High Haunted Roadies.
(52:05):
I wanted to provide a bit of an addendum to
this episode. I know Todd and I talked about my
touring the Grand Hotel and how the hotels seemed to
be open to me having one of my paranormal retreats there. Well,
since the recording of this episode, I heard back from them.
Now I need to stress that the staff and the
hotel are absolutely lovely, and I have a trip booked
(52:27):
there for this summer and probably every summer after that
because it's one of my favorite places. I'd also like
distress that no one owes us access to haunted locations. Okay,
but that being said, I think they're a little worried
about having.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
A ghostly reputation.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
They very politely declined the retreat at this time. But
I'm certainly not giving up on them yet. Maybe one
day they'll come around. Haunted r Road is a production
of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Haunted
(53:05):
Road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney, with
additional research by Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited
and produced by supervising producer Rima el Kali, with executive
producers Aaron Menke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. Learn more
about this show over at Grimandmild dot com, and for
(53:26):
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!