2026 Winter Porch Side Stories

Porch Side Stories

Celebrating Our Team, Culture, and Traditions

Grand Staff

Together We are Stronger

A Grand Hotel core value of compassion, carried forward through the Jamaican Relief Fund to aid Jamaican team members after Hurricane Melissa

As the closing bell echoed through the grounds of Grand Hotel on October 27, 2025, signifying the end of the hotel’s 139th season, many Jamaican team members stood on Mackinac Island facing a quiet, unthinkable truth. Over 1,000 miles away, their families and communities throughout Jamaica were bracing for Hurricane Melissa, a storm with winds reaching 185 miles per hour and a path set straight across Jamaica.

With only a limited number of days remaining on the island before Grand Hotel closed for the 2025 season, Jamaican team members waited anxiously as the storm struck on October 28, knowing they would eventually be flying home to witness the damage caused by one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded to hit Jamaica.

For decades, Jamaican team members have been a constant presence at Grand Hotel, returning season after season, some for more than three decades, to serve guests, uphold traditions, and help to create the warm, gracious spirit that defines America’s Summer Place. As the team members left Mackinac Island last October, many carried a heavy sense of fear and uncertainty for what awaited them and their loved ones at home.

When Home Is Changed Forever
Hurricane Melissa made landfall on October 28, cutting directly across Jamaica and Montego Bay, where most team members live. In the days that followed, Grand Hotel leadership began hearing from team members as they returned to their homes and communities forever altered by the storm.

According to Grand Hotel President David Jurcak, every Jamaican team member was affected in some way. For some, the damage was severe. For others, it was catastrophic. Homes were entirely demolished, some had their roofs entirely blown off, and access to basic necessities like water and electricity was unobtainable for weeks or months.

“Montego Bay is where the vast majority of our team members live and the hurricane went straight through this area and straight through the country,” Jurcak says.

Still, amid the devastation, Jurcak emphasized one profound relief.

“There was great loss with property damage and essential infrastructure, but none of our team members or their families suffered physical injuries or loss of life, which was a great relief,” Jurcak says. “You can always rebuild but injuries or loss of life are truly devastating.”

Stories of Survival
For Glendon Bulgin, a server in Grand Hotel’s Main Dining Room for 34 seasons, the hurricane reshaped everyday life. Glendon and his wife, Ivy, live in Montego Bay, where the storm left widespread damage and ongoing challenges.

“We live in Montego Bay and were greatly affected,” Bulgin says. “The roads were damaged and remain damaged, our water system is still out as of today, we have no electricity here, and our phone service is very limited. But nevertheless, we are grateful that we are still alive.”

But the reality around them has told a far more difficult story.

“Where I live there are 12 or 13 houses, and only two are now standing,” he says. “We are very fortunate to have our house intact and the roof intact.”

In the weeks that followed, survival required constant adjustment to address essential needs like access to water.

“Water is life,” Bulgin says. “Once you have water, then electricity comes after. When we are out of water, we make things work in our community. Sometimes we buy water in town. We do what we can. We are survivors, and we move through and pick up the broken pieces.”

Even months later, recovery remains slow. Water and electricity are still unreliable in many areas, and rebuilding is complicated by shortages and overwhelmed work crews.

Although Onique Fearon, who has worked at Grand Hotel for 20 years and now serves as General Manager of the Main Dining Room, In-Room Dining, and Afternoon Tea, was not directly impacted, his mother’s home was destroyed.

He says the prolonged lack of electricity and running water has been very difficult, and unemployment remains a challenge since many hotels will not reopen until November.

“Everyone looks forward to power and water being restored,” he says. “Despite the hardship, Jamaica is becoming better prepared, with more citizens relying on solar energy and generators. Communities are slowly recovering, though some families remain without a roof.”

“Our hearts ache for our Jamaican team members as they face the difficult journey ahead, returning home to rebuild their lives, their homes, and their hope. We know that the road will be long, but together, we can help ease the burden and remind them that they are not alone.”

David Jurcak
President, Grand Hotel

When Grand Hotel Family Comes Together
As news from Jamaica reached Mackinac Island, Grand Hotel leadership knew they needed to act quickly and directly to help their family of Jamaican team members. The Grand Hotel Together We Are Stronger Jamaican Relief Fund was established to provide immediate financial support to affected team members, with the goal of helping them meet essential needs during an uncertain time.

“We become emotionally connected with our team members,” Jurcak says. “When you work at a hotel or a business where you’re around people all the time, you’re connected. They are family.”

Jurcak explained that while many worthy organizations were providing relief throughout Jamaica, the focus of the fund was intentional.

“We wanted to directly help those people who work for Grand Hotel and Bicycle Street Inn,” he says. “They’re family, and when something happens at home, you do everything possible to help them.”

Grand Hotel partnered with the Givinga Foundation, a platform that connects nonprofits, community organizations, and businesses to streamline giving, volunteering, and charitable support through its affiliated 501(c)(3). The Givinga platform allowed donations to the Jamaican Relief Fund to be collected and distributed efficiently. Givinga also donated all administrative fees, ensuring that every dollar was distributed directly to team members and their families, and made a separate significant donation to the fund.

The response from the Grand Hotel community was immediate and deeply moving. What began as a call for help quickly became an outpouring of compassion, as 116 donors, including Grand Hotel itself, the Musser family, longtime guests, team members, Grand Club members, longtime business groups that host yearly gatherings at Grand Hotel, and community organizations came together to give over $150,000. Those funds were distributed directly to Jamaican team members and their families, helping to cover essential needs during an uncertain time and provide reassurance that they were not facing the aftermath of the storm alone.

“The support has meant a great deal to our team members, providing relief, stability, and the comfort of knowing their Grand Hotel family was by their side when they needed it most,” Jurcak says.

Recipients of the Together We Are Stronger Jamaican Relief Fund show an outpouring of appreciation for the financial assistance from the Grand Hotel family.

Rebuilding Together
As Jamaica continues its recovery, rebuilding remains a long and uneven process. Infrastructure repairs must come first, followed by homes and neighborhoods. Materials are scarce, and costs remain high.

“They’re all hard at work rebuilding their communities, their own space, and their country,” Jurcak says. “And it just takes a long time to get that done.”

For Bulgin, the support from Grand Hotel carried meaning far beyond the financial assistance.

“Thank you to the entire team from Grand Hotel and all those who supported us,” he says. “On behalf of all of our Jamaican team members, I would like to thank the Grand Hotel corporate team, the Givinga Foundation, Grand Hotel team members, Grand Hotel groups, Grand Club members, and so many others who contributed to this generous effort. We appreciate the help that has been given to us, and it’s going a long way toward helping us to pick up the broken pieces and to put our lives back together again. Thank you all very much.”

“Support from local donations, Grand Hotel members and guests, and the government has been deeply appreciated,” Fearon says.

As the island rebuilds and the seasons continue to turn, the bond between Grand Hotel and its Jamaican team members remains rooted in something deeper than work alone. It is a shared commitment, strengthened in one of the hardest moments many of them have ever faced, and carried forward with gratitude, resilience, and hope.

Grand History

From Forgotten Ground to Beloved Sanctuary: The Evolution of Grand Hotel’s Secret Garden

Tucked quietly beyond the Tea Garden on the grounds of Grand Hotel is a place that feels less like a destination and more like a discovery. Grand Hotel’s Secret Garden reveals itself slowly, inviting guests to pause, breathe, and step into something unexpectedly intimate. Today, it is one of the most beloved spaces on Mackinac Island, a setting for milestones both planned and spontaneous. Its story, however, begins in a place few would recognize.
For decades, this corner of the grounds served a purely practical purpose. It was used for composting and discarded debris, unseen and largely forgotten. In the summer of 2015, only two photographs captured the area before its transformation. They tell a quiet story of potential waiting beneath the surface.

That summer, Drew Butterfield, Grand Hotel’s Director of Grounds, began what would become a deeply personal project. Day after day, he cleared debris by hand, carefully salvaging rich topsoil and reshaping the land. It was slow, deliberate work, guided by a belief that something beautiful could emerge. After weeks of effort, the space began to breathe again, opening the door to a vision rooted in movement, emotion, and a deep love of the natural world.

Water was a source of design inspiration for Butterfield, influenced by his journey from the farm fields of Ohio to the waterways of Northern Michigan.That inspiration flows through the Secret Garden in both spirit and form.

“When I decided to transform this old compost area, I was initially thinking about a short recirculating stream so that visitors could listen to its calming sounds,” Butterfield says. “I decided to go in a different direction and try to create something people had not seen before. A river made completely out of flowers.”

After trialing a few spring flowering bulbs, it was clear that grape hyacinths were the perfect flower to create this magical scene.

“We initially started small but have continued to expand the Secret Garden every year and now plant over 50,000 grape hyacinths to create the blue blanket of color that creates our ‘river,’ the main feature of the spring garden,” he says.

As spring unfolds, the river of grape hyacinths winds through the garden, drawing the eye forward and inviting guests to follow its path. Thousands of these blooms create a ribbon of color that feels almost alive beneath the spring light. Daffodils and tulips surround the river, blooming in carefully timed succession.

As spring gives way to summer, the Secret Garden transforms once more. Spring flowers are replaced with summer annuals and tropical plants. New Guinea impatiens provide strong color, joined by begonias, petunias, nicotiana, marigolds, and crossandra. Large-leaf plants and perennials like astilbe, hydrangea, butterfly bushes, giant butterbur, and hens and chicks add height and texture. By summer, the garden is full, green, and lively, inviting guests to wander, pause, and take it all in.

“There isn’t a single day from May through October that I don’t look in on the Secret Garden, even if it is just for a minute on my way home at the end of the day,” Butterfield says. “Seeing people’s reaction to finding the concealed entrance and turning the corner for their first look at the Secret Garden has become one of my favorite aspects of my job. I never would have guessed when I started dreaming up the idea in 2015 that this garden would bring so much joy to its visitors.”

By October, after the summer garden fades, Butterfield and the garden grounds crew of eight return to the soil, shaping beds, and planting more than 70,000 bulbs by hand. Then comes the long wait through winter until at last the garden awakens in the spring, breaking through the cold to begin its next season of beauty and renewal.

“In the spring, we remove all of the flower bulbs to plant 12,000 to 15,000 annuals and tropicals to create the display that will flower from June all the way into October. It is a tremendous amount of work but truly a labor of love,” Butterfield says.

When the garden is in full bloom, one of the most quietly powerful moments comes when guests lift their eyes. Through a precisely planned opening in the cedar hedge, Grand Hotel appears in the distance, framed as if by design and discovered by chance. It is a view that stops people in their tracks, a reminder of where they are and why this place matters.

What makes the Secret Garden so meaningful is not only how it looks, but how it makes people feel. Because it is unmarked and hidden from maps, finding it feels personal, like stumbling upon something meant just for you. Guests linger here. They kneel to take photos. They hold hands. They propose. They return years later to stand in the same spot, remembering who they were the first time they found it.

Over time, the Secret Garden has become a place of stories. Thousands of photographs, countless engagements, family portraits, and quiet moments have unfolded among its flowers. It is not uncommon to see guests moved by the experience, surprised by how deeply a garden can touch them.

While Grand Hotel’s grounds are steeped in history, they are never finished. The Secret Garden continues to evolve, shaped by creativity, care, and the dedication of a remarkable grounds team. New elements appear quietly, waiting to be discovered by those who wander just a little farther.

“We try to design our flower beds differently each and every season to provide our guests with a different experience,” Butterfield says. “It requires weeks’ worth of designing in November and December, but through the use of different plants, colors, and textures we create new combinations so that even our most frequent guests feel they are looking at something new every year.”

For those who find it, the Secret Garden is more than a beautiful place. It is a moment of stillness, a spark of wonder, and a reminder that transformation is always possible, especially when guided by patience, passion, and love for the land.

Grand Rituals

The Front Porch: Where Time Slows and Stories Begin

Some milestones are best honored not with grandeur, but with grace.

When Rebecca Laible came to Grand Hotel to celebrate her 75th birthday, she carried a single, heartfelt wish: to sit on The Front Porch. Over a few early summer days in May, Mackinac Island offered her the rare gift of stillness. Mornings without urgency, familiar meals in the Main Dining Room enjoyed at the same table, and quiet hours shaped by reflection rather than plans. From her balcony overlooking the Mackinac Bridge to the gentle rhythm of days spent on The Front Porch, her time here unfolded with intention and ease.

Porch Side Stories is devoted to moments like these: reflective, timeless, and deeply personal. They are the memories made when you pause, settle into a rocking chair on The Front Porch, and allow Grand Hotel to become not just a destination, but part of your story.

A Letter to Grand Hotel: Rebecca Laible’s Porch Side Story

“A year ago, I was planning to celebrate my 75th birthday (May 14th) in a memorable way. My mother celebrated hers by parasailing in Hawaii. My older sister had celebrated her 75th on the coast of Croatia. I wanted something less adventurous and closer to home. I simply wanted to sit on the porch of Grand Hotel.

I contacted reservations and was rewarded with the most helpful person. She found the best price for my three-day stay, and she found the most perfect room, Room 216. The room was gorgeous and had a balcony with a view of the bridge. I was in heaven. I sat on our balcony as much as I could, but my focus was The Front Porch. I did take a carriage ride and went to the shops downtown, but I spent most of the time doing what I came to do, sit on the porch. The weather was perfect all three days as I soaked in the view and chatted with other porch sitters.

We made purchases in all the hotel shops and enjoyed our meals at the hotel. We loved that we were seated at the same table each meal, a table that overlooked the porch and the lake. All the staff provided excellent and pleasant service. I cannot tell you enough how incredibly wonderful this Grand Hotel experience was. Absolutely perfect.

This was not my first visit to the island. When I was eight years old, my family took a day trip to the island and my mother wanted to bike around the island. My older sister and younger brother could ride a bike and my little sister could fit in the basket. I could not ride a bike, so my parents bought me a large lollipop and told me to stay on the main street until they returned. A different time, a different way of parenting. Thank you to everyone who made my 75th birthday an unforgettable and fulfilling experience.”

-Rebecca Laible