More Grand Rapids History Stories

Here is another great piece of Grand Rapids history. We have a beautiful home here that was designed by a famous architectural firm who designed something else that is pretty spectacular in Michigan.

‎Steve DeKoster posted on the Facebook page, ‎Grand Rapids History 1960 and Before, telling an interesting tale of the Hanchett house.

You probably have driven by it hundreds of times. The Hanchett house, at 125 College SE, and across the street from WOOD TV8, was designed by the architectural firm Mason and Rice in Detroit in 1889-1890, and originally built by Eva Byrne, the daughter of a lumber baron who died and left her a fortune when she was just 17 years old. The firm was responsible for many notable commercial buildings and churches in Detroit, as well as a number of privately owned mansions.

But, the rest of the story is that one of their best known designs that thousands of people every year see, stay, photograph, and, actually walk on, well, the porch, anyway, is on an island in Lake Huron. It is immortalized by the film... Somewhere in Time. That 1887 landmark? The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island!

Pretty cool, huh?