Northern Michigan is Chris and Jim MacInnes’ home and year-round playground, and they’re happy to share.
Their corner of these pleasant peninsulas — the Crystal Mountain resort — boasts 36 holes of golf, downhill and cross-county skiing, restaurants, luxury lodgings, a waterpark and swimming pools, all located in tiny Thompsonville, between Traverse City and Cadillac.
It seems all the skiing, kayaking, swimming, mountain biking and rounds of golf can make a person restless, so twice in the past couple years, these resort owners have made a quick getaway 234 miles southeast, to what some would say is an unlikely spot for a weekend away from it all — Detroit.
“That probably wouldn’t be the first place we’d go as far as a big vacation,” says Chris MacInnes, whose family has owned Crystal Mountain for about 50 years, “but we do this now and then for a weekend getaway, rather than going to somewhere like Chicago.”
MacInnes said her friend — Detroit developer Colin Hubbell – came up with the idea for Detroit getaway for the well-traveled couple, and on both their visits they were impressed with what the city had to offer.
Making connections
For the most part, Chris MacInnes says, their trips have been focused on downtown attractions, although they did make side trips for a taste of history at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn and the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe.
MacInnes says she was struck by how much development was going on in the city — cranes, bulldozers, new houses, new lofts, new retail going up everywhere — and until she visited she had no idea just how much was going on down here.
Now MacInnes says she feels like a goodwill ambassador when she tells her Up North friends what a great time she had in Detroit, using words like “lovely,” “unique,” and “wonderful” to describe the places she’s visited in the Motor City.
She says there is a disconnect between the lower half of the mitten and Up North, and her travels in exploring Detroit have made her realize all the more just how linked Michiganders are to each other — economically, socially and culturally.
“We’re not an isolated island,” she says. “Northern Michigan needs to put out the welcome mat. We’re a lot stronger if we say that we are part of a terrific state with wonderful, diverse resources — both cultural and recreational.”
MacInnes says that she realizes that if she wants to lure people from Detroit — and not only from its suburbs — to her Up North resort, she has to take the time to visit Detroit and learn more about her target markets, especially minority groups who may not have been marketed to in the past.
“If we want the wonderful mix of people who live in Detroit to come Up North, we want to know and understand all the wonderful things going on down there,” she says.
The urban getaway
So what did these Up North residents do in Motown?
MacInnes says on both visits they made the Inn on Ferry Street their home base (innonferrystreet.com). With 40 rooms spread out over four restored Victorian Homes and two carriage houses off Woodward in Midtown, the inn was the perfect starting point to embark on explorations for the city’s cultural offerings, she says.
The accommodations, she says, were memorable. “Probably the best word to describe the Inn on Ferry Street is ‘unique,’” she says. “The collection of old houses has been so carefully and thoughtfully renovated.”
Plus the inn offers a free shuttle service to anywhere in a 5-mile-radius, which is helpful, she says, when you don’t know your way around the city.
That’s a key service, because while there is great development in Midtown, Detroit has yet to become a truly walk-able city, says Sue Mosey, president of the University Cultural Center Association, one of the inn’s development partners.
One of their visits hit during the annual Noel Night festivities, MacInnes says, so they spent a wonderful evening soaking in the music and atmosphere with thousands of people filling up Woodward, Wayne State’s campus and the surrounding neighborhoods to hear music, take pictures with Santa, shop and warm up over hot cocoa from the Salvation Army. It was a wonderful exposure to the city, she said, and afforded her a chance to tour some of the Detroit’s museums.
“I had never gone to the DIA. Now whenever we go to Detroit we try to spend some time at the DIA,” she says. “It’s one our top resources, not just the city’s but the state’s. Hopefully Detroit will look at it as not just an asset but a regional treasure.”
The MacInnes’ also spent time at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. She says she found the exhibits to be moving and quite educational, giving her a greater sense of African American history in the state.
Mosey says a night like Noel Night is perfect to discover the city, but year-round there are so many different types of entertainment downtown it would be easy to pack a weekend with sports, music, arts and more. “There’s a variety of different types of experiences,” she says. “I think it’s a lot about discovery.”
The meals seal the deal
MacInnes also raves about the dining options in the city. As a resort owner, she knows that fabulous meals leave lasting impressions on travelers — feed them at Chili’s or Outback Steakhouse and, well, they’re likely to forget. But some restaurants stick with you. She still oohs and ahhs over her spring dinner at the Whitney, recalling the beautiful and historic surrounds. And Sweet Georgia Brown was as unique as it was wonderful, she says. And when she recalls a meal overlooking the Detroit River at the new jazz joint/fine dining hot-spot Seldom Blues in the Renaissance Center, she still sounds a bit misty. “That’s a really fun restaurant,” she says. “There are some pretty nice places to eat downtown.”
For someone like MacInnes to get misty over a meal and a night downtown is quite remarkable. Tourism is her business, and she takes it very seriously. “We’re in the business of making memories for families,” she says. When her customers look back at their good times, she hopes Crystal Mountain sticks out as somewhere special for them, somewhere they kicked back, relaxed and played together.
A place can do that for a family, she says, and for a weekend here or there, she lets Detroit do that for her. And that’s no small thing.
Crystal Mountain
Detroit Institute of Arts
Seldom Blues
Sweet Georgia Brown
Inn on Ferry Street
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
All Photographs Copyright Dave Krieger
Inns on Ferry Street - Midtown
Street scene - Downtown
Inns on Ferry Street - Midtown
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History - Midtown
The Whitney - Midtown