‘The Shock Is Part of the Fun.’ Tour a Grand Michigan Hotel Designed to Stand Out

I WAS a goofy kid of 8 when I first visited the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, a verdant, car-free isle nestled near the tip of Michigan’s mitten. But even then I recognized the storied 19th-century resort was something special. Stark white and sprawled on a bluff, the Queen-Anne-style pile seemed like an apparition from a bygone era—a universe away from the drab prairie-hugging bungalows of my Chicago suburb.