Somewhere in Time Weekend at Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island: A Personal Journey

Kris Griffiths reports on an extraordinary hotel in northern Michigan and its symbiotic relationship with a 1980 cult film, and how he’s waited over 30 years to visit – the same weekend hundreds of other fans of the film annually visit too…
 

Throughout one’s years of international travel there are certain key sites and sights that you’ll never forget beholding for the first time, after a lifetime of viewing only representations of them on a page or screen. Sydney Opera House, Angkor Wat and Niagara Falls top the list for this writer, all ticked off on the same life-ambition-fulfilling round-the-worlder in my early 30s.

But while these are universally recognised icons of world geography, there are certain other lesser-known spots on the global scene, chiefly famous in their own country, and a bit more ‘out of the way’, so remain more of a secret. You really have to want to go there.

They are thus almost just as special to an ‘outlander’ to reach for the first time, when he’s been in on that secret for a lifetime, in this case first perceiving the place 30+ years ago in a time-travel period drama starring Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve, which, after a failed initial release in 1980, went on to achieve cult status, drawing thousands of other fans to a small four-square-mile island in Lake Huron, northern Michigan, where the movie was almost entirely filmed. 
 

So when I first witness Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, the central location of Somewhere in Time, looming ahead of me – first from the ferry across the strait from the mainland, then in a horse-drawn carriage (motor vehicles are banned on the island) trotting up a hill towards it – it’s another unforgettable life-voyage moment, heightened by this being the longest gap between first becoming aware of somewhere's existence and physically visiting.

My moment has arrived at the time of year fellow fans of the film congregate here – for its ‘Somewhere in Time Weekend’ – which customarily takes place annually on the last weekend of the hotel’s season before it closes for the winter, in anticipation of the lake freezing over. The added kicker for me is I had no idea this was the case until after I'd arrived – that this milestone visit would occur on the weekend the hotel (and whole island) ceremonially shuts down and everyone leaves, mystifying the experience somehow further.
 

Step inside Grand Hotel

Just a word on the appearance of this epic building before I enter it, having awkwardly dismounted my carriage with suitcase in hand (not used to this!): it’s one of the hugest (and for America, one of the oldest, built 1877) hotels I’ve ever seen, at least width-wise; visible in its elevated position for many miles around, its white columned portico enlivened with literally thousands of red geraniums, plus a long procession of rocking-chairs on which guests can serenely sit and gaze over the Straits of Mackinac (pronounced ‘Mack-in-awe’, incidentally), and a dozen large US flags flapping lightly in the autumn breeze. With the length of two football pitches, this front porch is the world’s longest.

I can only imagine what the movie's location scouting team must have thought when likewise physically approaching the setting the first time, realising fully that they'd found their place, but, crucially, not cognisant of the legacy their choice would leave long after the last scene of their quaint little fantasy-romance film had been wrapped.

Unfortunately for all concerned, Somewhere in Time flopped at the box office and was rubbished by critics. This seemed particularly harsh considering the significant positives in the film's credit account: 1) Reeve in his first post-Superman role, and in the more serious acting mode he was actually trained for; 2) Seymour, also in her prime, and of the classical beauty suiting her well to period dramas, and specifically to this one; 3) a masterful, evocative soundtrack score by John Barry, of James Bond fame (the relatively low-budget project couldn’t originally afford him but his arm was twisted by Jane, his longtime friend and former Bond girl, and to his benefit as it would outsell all his other soundtracks put together); and finally 4) the Victorian time-warp setting of Mackinac Island, where the only way of getting about is horse-and-carriage and your own two feet on bike pedals or the ground – only for the shooting of Somewhere in Time has (non-emergency) vehicles ever been allowed to drive here in the last 125 years.
 

What's the story?

So what was the critics’ problem with it? It seems they largely weren’t a fan of what they found an overly sentimental and far-fetched storyline, if old reviews are anything to go by (aggregate ‘Metacritic’ score of 29, signifying "generally unfavourable reviews").

For the record, the plot (spoiler alert!) begins with an aged actress interrupting an afterparty for the debut production by budding playwright Richard Collier (Reeve), to whom she hands a pocketwatch and implores “Come back to me”, leaving him unsurprisingly befuddled. Years later, on a hotel retreat to get over a breakup and writer’s block, he spots and becomes obsessed with a vintage portrait of Edwardian-era actress Elise McKenna (Seymour) who, it of course transpires, is the elderly woman who’d previously confronted him. Long story short: with the assistance of his time-travel-espousing old college professor he manages to transport himself back to 1912 at the same hotel where he finds and successfully woos Elise, against the wishes of her protective manager Robinson (Christopher Plummer – another coup for the movie). But their whirlwind romance is cut short by Richard finding a modern-day coin still in his suit jacket which sends him crashing back to the future where, after repeatedly failing to replicate his time-leap back to Elise, he starves himself and dies of a broken heart and malnutrition.

They’re reunited in the afterlife though, of course. Theirs was a love that transcended the boundaries of space and time, is the prevailing theme: a love that not only trashed the laws of physics but represented true romance of the old-fashioned kind. 

Either way, the movie bombed, not helped by an actors’ strike preventing Reeve and Seymour from publicising it, and Universal choosing to promotionally focus on its other 1980 release, The Blues Brothers, which would experience a contrastingly different journey.
 

An unanticipated resurrection

However, all was not lost for Somewhere in Time, which did not simply sink without trace as is the usual fate of film flops. Rather, it was resuscitated, primarily by the proliferation of cable TV, which flung a slew of underachievers and obscurities back onto the consumer market, breathing new life into many through repeated airings for a fresh audience. 

Providentially for me, this happened on both sides of the Atlantic. Here in the UK, my parents were early adopters of the cable craze, my movie-loving late mum well sold on the prospect of two dedicated film channels, one of which was to bring Somewhere in Time into our lives, approximately 12 years after its original release. It was around that period I’d first got into studying classic literature at high school, and then the definitive BBC Pride and Prejudice series, which solidified my penchant for period dramas – well produced and acted ones, specifically – and that’s exactly what Somewhere in Time was to my eyes, as it proved to many others’ across the Western world: critics be damned!

It still wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, mind – my first two girlfriends I showed it to were unimpressed (the words “daft” and “load of nonsense” sticking out for me), so much so that I discontinued showing it to anyone and would keep it my guilty-pleasure secret (likewise my other time-travel-romance-guilty-plezh ‘Kate and Leopold’ starring Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman – berated by both critics and girlfriends). 

Final word on all this to the ‘Variety’ critic who nailed it: “These films rely for their effect on a blissful surrender of reason. To dismiss them as ridiculous or implausible is to miss both the point and the pleasure.”

So there.
 

Back to the future

Fast-forward back to Michigan, where, unbeknownst to me until a few years ago, Somewhere in Time’s existence as a cult fan phenomenon has long been stationed and established. Every October (the month of its release) since 1990, its fans (led by 'INSITE' - International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts) have gathered at Grand Hotel en masse in full Edwardian period dress splendour, for a pilgrimage weekend celebrating and reliving the movie in every possible way: talks with cast and crewmembers, scene re-enactments, trivia quizzes, costume exhibitions, locational walking tours, etc. 
 

It’s not unlike your many other international fan conventions, e.g. Star Wars/Trek – just a bit more upmarket and exclusive (hundreds, not thousands, attending) and housed in a venue so far above your conventional event space as to be in another galaxy far, far away. It’s no surprise that both acting leads have taken part in years past: Reeve in 1994 and 2000; Seymour in 2002, 2019 and 2022. 

For me, I’ll never forget finally joining the club, stepping into the opening evening reception in the hotel’s Parlour: into the sea of taffeta dresses, top hats and white gloves, and the cosplayed gentility of a bygone society. It all reminded me of the formal dinner scene in Titanic with everyone dressed to the nines. You won't get much closer to Edwardian time travel, at least Stateside. 
 

You then all enjoy a five-course meal together in the opulent main dining room, served by suited staff to the live soundtrack of a jazz band or orchestral quartet. This is prime opportunity as a solo attendee to discuss the film with people who never tire of doing so, and also with some of their non-fan friends ‘dragged along’ for the ride, a couple of whom had only seen it for the first time at the opening-day screening in the hotel theatre. 

I have to say that screening was especially emphatic for me: watching the movie in the very hotel in which it was filmed, almost half a century later. Disconcertingly also, however, and I don’t know whether it was jetlag or the slight hangover I was suffering that first day, combined with not having seen the film since 2017, but aspects of it jarred this time: the unlikelihood of the bumbling Clark Kent-like character Reeve portrayed so well managing to successfully seduce a famous actress of the day within 24 hours of materialising in 1912; or the obvious time-travel paradox of the pocketwatch given to each other in different eras – an impossible object with no beginning. Why were these things suddenly bothering me now? Where, indeed, had my “blissful surrender of reason” gone?
 

Full immersion

These aspects I chewed over with my dining chums the second night, mostly with neutrals who had either thought the same or concurred (I found the hardcore fans didn’t take too kindly to their favourite film being dissected by paradox-highlighting critical theory). Various fan theories were also enthusiastically aired around the table, a common one being Elisa’s manager Robinson also being a time-traveller, is why he was so doggedly antagonistic towards Richard, to the point of having him kidnapped – and was it he who planted the coin in Richard’s suit pocket to dispatch him back to the future..?

I spent so long yakking at that dinner that it begat my sole major disappointment of the weekend: missing not only the 9pm screening of the scene re-enactments I had enjoyed watching being filmed on the locations walk, but also the group photo finale where I missed my chance to recreate Jack Nicholson’s pose in the concluding shot of The Shining. 
 

However, after sweet-talking one of the lingering organisers immediately after I’d apprehended this calamity, he kindly agreed to email me an online link to the re-enactment clips, which meant not only could I watch them at my leisure in my bedroom, I could also invite back anyone who’d likewise missed the screening, or indeed anyone who fancied a ‘rewatch’. Hot property!
 

History repeating

I’d read an old 2017 event guide in my research, averring the weekend wasn’t just a couples-only affair – indeed there were “accounts of single people who came from England” who “set out courageously, solo” – truth! 
 

I ended up spending the remainder of the final night ensconced in the hotel’s ‘Audubon Bar’ – a cosy whisky lounge styled as an oak-panelled library – with an attendee I’d met on my belated entry to the finale event just as everyone was leaving, who’d broke it to me that I’d missed the boat. 

We were the last ones in that lounge, appraising the weekend (she’s a regular) and wider life, long after every other guest and worker had retired, and it was only the next morning I realised we were quite literally the last ever guests of the Audubon, as workers had already begun stripping the décor and removing furniture (it will reopen refurbished for the coming season as a glitzier Gatsby-style cocktail bar).
 

The party over

A broader feeling of shutdown and comedown pervaded the departure day, not just at the Grand but island-wide, the seasonal closure marked with longstanding ritual: hotel guests invited to uproot and take away the thousands of planted geraniums, porch flags taken down, a bell rung in the Parlour; meanwhile the traditional confectionary stores in town shuttering up, the marble fudge tables cleared and cleaned, remaining boxes of peanut brittle now at ‘everything must go’ discounted prices – with something approaching kid-in-a-sweetshop energy I duly snapped up an armful of the last lot for my final souvenirs. 
 

Again, I had no idea any of this universal closure would be happening until I arrived here, so it was a truly surreal conclusion to proceedings, with a note of poignancy as the hotel lobby's luggage heap whittled down with successive groups of guests trotting tiredly away in their carriages, bound for the ferry terminal. The ball was over, at least for another year.

Before retiring the night before, I’d gone for a late wander around the now deserted hotel, down the promenade corridor lined with framed old newspaper review clippings and photos of illustrious former guests, from James Earl Jones to JFK; and there is, of course, a side-room dedicated to Somewhere in Time pictures and memorabilia. With strains of old-time music still floating through the air it did feel a bit like The Shining, when Jack is transported back to the Overlook's earlier era. I peered closely at the Victorian guest group photos, to see if I was ever here before, not just like Jack but like Richard Collier in Somewhere in Time finding his own signature scribbled in a 1912 hotel guestbook (both movies released the same year funnily enough). 
 

My actual eeriest moment, and I mean properly stop-in-my-tracks spooky, had occurred on the evening of my arrival. There are almost 400 bedrooms here, across several floors, and it just so happened that in the corridor adjacent to mine I didn’t encounter two twin girls ominously standing side by side, but two medieval women, framed on the wall – their significance being I’d only seen them in one other place my entire life: in my home in England, after I’d randomly bought the same framed artwork which had caught my eye at a local auction house exactly a year previously, the first time I’d ever seen the image. The twin women at the hotel were the same lady, in different dresses: a dignitary named Margaret Bernard Peyton, who lived and died in the mid-1400s in my county of Cambridgeshire, where she is buried in a local village church. And here she is 4,000 miles away on Mackinac Island, on my corridor wall. I have to wait until the hotel reopens in April to find out what the connection is, and why she is there. 
 

Completing the journey 

Back at the tiny Pellston Airport on the mainland, from where I’m flying back to Britain via Detroit, I’m asked an unusual question by the X-ray conveyor belt attendant.

“Are you carrying any fudge in your luggage, sir?”

I would have thought this was a joke, had my companion from the hotel not pre-warned me that they routinely ask this.

“No, but I do have several boxes of peanut brittle,” I reply. “Which I would like to declare.”  

They’ve no probs with brittle it turns out. (FTR: the Transportation Security Administration requires passengers to remove fudge from their baggage "because of its similar shape and consistency to C-4 explosives, and because contraband could potentially be hidden inside it.")

Back on the tiny regional jet on which I arrived, my Somewhere in Michigan adventure was over, but I buzzed in the afterglow for weeks afterwards, and to this day regard the whole experience as a life-landmark one: an effervescent cocktail of coolness, wackiness and esprit de corps with a multitude of people dedicated to keeping a legacy alive.
 

Looking to the future 

This October marks the film’s 45th anniversary, and the 35th of the Grand Hotel weekend, with Jane Seymour reportedly interested in returning for it. For me, I’ve never more strongly felt the dichotomy of wanting to return somewhere but also not wanting to, to preserve the original experience and not dilute it with familiarity. It’s also a fair old distance to traverse from Blighty, so if I did return it probably won’t be so soon, even if my homegirl Jane is going (we both from the same district of West London).

Until then I will content with the memories and photos and fanclub stall memorabilia and one of the sweetest gifts I’ve ever received: a miniature wind-up musicbox that tinkles the Rachmaninoff motif tune of Somewhere in Time (video clip at bottom of the article). 

This piece of music formerly transported me to the film whenever I heard it; now it takes me back to Grand Hotel and its time-capsule island, where a simpler, politer past remains constant, and distilled into these precious few days of themed abandon every autumn.
 
 

Visit www.grandhotel.com/packages/2025-somewhere-in-tim… to book and find out more about 2025’s event. 
Nb. it’s not on the season-closing weekend this year.