Wondrous West Bluff Cottages: A Mackinac Island Walking Tour

Mackinac Island's West Bluff is one of the Midwest's finest collections of Victorian architecture, built by industrialists escaping the heat and grime of post-Civil War cities. On this walking tour, you'll trace the stories behind eleven of these grand cottages, from the lumber barons and meat-packers who built them to the governors and immigrants who shaped their legacy.

The tour starts at the Walter C. Newberry Cottage, the first home past the Grand Hotel. You'll walk along the bluff, passing Queen Anne turrets, wraparound verandas, and shingle-style facades, while hearing how wealthy families competed for leases on this National Park land starting at just $25 a year. Along the way, you'll discover how business partnerships, family dynasties, and architectural rivalries played out side by side on this single stretch of shoreline.

You'll also hear about the ghosts haunting the William D. Gilbert Cottage, the widow's walk scarred by lightning strikes, and the mysterious neighbor who tore down his cottage just one year after building it. The tour ends at Casa Verano, built for lumber baron Delos Blodgett in 1888, with lake views from every ground-floor room and stained-glass windows that frame the Straits of Mackinac.

On this 45-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Admire The Pines, the island's most visited cottage, once owned by Michigan governor G. Mennen Williams, who championed construction of the Mackinac Bridge
• Discover how Hogg Haven's owners guided bats out with a tennis racquet – now mounted on the wall as a tribute
• Learn how file-folder inventor William Amberg built his own plumbing system at the Wedding Cake Cottage decades before modern plumbing arrived
• Hear how Caringorm, recently sold, is believed to be the most expensive home ever purchased on the island
• Find out how Lebanese immigrant Mike Hamady built one of Michigan's largest grocery chains before purchasing Wonderview in the 1940s
• See Skywater Cottage, restored over four years to reveal pine planks hidden beneath drop ceilings

This tour pairs beautifully with a browse through Island Bookstore downtown, where you'll find Timeless: Inside Mackinac Island's Historic Cottages, featuring interiors from many of the homes you've just seen, as well as the book Great Women of Mackinac that features Daisy Blodgett, on the original homeowners whose descendents are still Mackinac residents.