The Dexter HotelElk Rapids<\/p>\n
The newest reason to know where Elk Rapids is. Opened in May 2026 in
\na reimagined apartment building a few steps from the marina, the 29-room
\nDexter comes from Daniel Caudill, Shinola’s former creative director,
\nworking alongside his Kinship Hospitality partner Kamron Bijeh-Apple,
\nand the pedigree shows. Nearly everything in the building was designed
\nand made in Michigan\u2014the white oak furniture, the ceramics thrown by
\nTraverse City potters, the drapery sewn by a local seamstress, the
\nsalon-style walls hung with work by Michigan artists\u2014which gives the
\nwhole place a sense of belonging that most new boutique hotels spend
\nyears trying to manufacture. Downstairs, the Noble Lounge pours craft
\ncocktails above the waterfront, and the airport is about 20 minutes
\naway.<\/p>\n
The OtisHarbor Springs<\/p>\n
Set between two horse farms on the meadows outside Harbor Springs,
\nThe Otis is a beautifully renovated 31-key mid-century lodge that
\nmanages to honor the Birchwood Inn it used to be while feeling entirely
\nof the moment. Rooms are dressed in custom furnishings, Frette linens,
\nand Flamingo Estate products, and the property organizes itself around
\nthe Fireplace Lounge, a central gathering space serving light bites and
\ncocktails from a chef duo out of San Francisco’s James Beard\u2013recognized
\nNOPA. There’s also Birchwood General, an on-site shop stocked with local
\ngoods and charcuterie, and a caf\u00e9 pouring La Colombe for the mornings
\nyou’d rather not commit to anything. Harbor Springs itself, one of the
\nprettiest harbor towns on the lake, sits just down the hill and is worth
\na stroll (and a cookie or two from Tom\u2019s Mom\u2019s Cookies).<\/p>\n
Hotel IroquoisMackinac Island<\/p>\n
The Grand Hotel gets the postcards (and it\u2019s def worth a visit), but
\nthe Iroquois is where you should stay if you’d rather be on the water
\nthan looking at it from a porch. The white clapboard Victorian sits
\ndirectly on the shoreline at the edge of downtown, is family-run, with
\ngardens tumbling down toward the straits and rooms that feel like a summer house someone has kept up beautifully. Freighters slide past the
\nwindows, bikes and horses clop by out front, and there\u2019s an excellent
\nrestaurant to boot.<\/p>\n
The Inn at StonecliffeMackinac Island<\/p>\n
If the Iroquois is Mackinac’s front porch, Stonecliffe is its quiet
\nback garden. Built in 1904 and recently given a property-wide
\ntransformation, the Edwardian mansion sits on the island’s bluff side,
\nwhere fire pits and lawn games look out over the Mackinac Bridge and the
\nstraits connecting Lakes Huron and Michigan. The renovation kept the
\nhistory and the restored apple orchard now supports beehives, chicken
\ncoops, and a garden. Come here to be reminded that Mackinac has an
\nentire wooded interior beyond the fudge shops on Main Street.<\/p>\n
Hotel WalloonWalloon Lake<\/p>\n
Hemingway spent his boyhood summers on Walloon Lake, and the village
\nfinally has a hotel worthy of the literary real estate. Hotel Walloon is
\na polished lakeside property in the heart of a village small enough to
\nwalk in ten minutes, with water views, a proper dock, and a level of
\nservice that feels closer to the old Adirondack camps than to anything
\nyou’d expect this far off the interstate. The position is the real
\nluxury: Petoskey and Boyne City are both minutes away, and the
\nlake\u2014deep, clear, and considerably quieter than its famous neighbors\u2014is
\nright outside the door.<\/p>\n
Inn at Bay HarborPetoskey<\/p>\n
This is the grande dame of the stretch, a sprawling Victorian-style
\nresort perched above Little Traverse Bay just outside Petoskey, all
\ngabled rooflines and long waterfront lawn and sunsets that turn the
\nentire bay pink. (Petoskey calls them million-dollar sunsets, and while
\nthat’s the sort of thing a chamber of commerce says, in this case it
\nholds up.) It’s the full-service version of Up North\u2014spa, pools, golf,
\nrooms and cottages built for a week rather than a night\u2014and downtown
\nPetoskey’s gaslight district is a short drive away when you want an
\nafternoon of bookstores and boutiques.<\/p>\n
Alexandra InnTraverse City<\/p>\n
Traverse City’s hotel strip along East Grand Traverse Bay is (mostly)
\nforgettable, which makes the Alexandra Inn feel like something of a
\nrescue. Family-owned and run by third-generation hoteliers, the 32-room
\nproperty opened in 2023 with a private sugar-sand beach, balconied rooms
\nlooking north toward Old Mission Peninsula, and Blush, the only
\nwaterfront rooftop bar in town. Warm cookies appear in the evening,
\nlocal art hangs in every room, and the whole operation carries a
\npersonal quality that newer builds rarely manage. You’re five minutes
\nfrom downtown and three from the base of the Old Mission wine trail,
\nwhich is the ideal position for a first trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Dexter HotelElk Rapids The newest reason to know where Elk Rapids is. Opened in May 2026 in a reimagined apartment building a few steps from the marina, the 29-room Dexter comes from Daniel Caudill, Shinola’s former creative director, working alongside his Kinship Hospitality partner Kamron Bijeh-Apple, and the pedigree shows. Nearly everything in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[242,72,1403,3085,3083,3086,3084,294],"class_list":["post-2272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-michigan","tag-food-and-drink","tag-lifestyle","tag-michigan","tag-michigan-dining","tag-michigan-food","tag-michigan-grocery-stores","tag-michigan-restaurants","tag-travel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117255989311143005","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}