Belvedere Hotel

Back to Archives		The Belvedere Hotel The hotel was the center of the resort for as long as it existed. While its original purpose was to attract cottage buyers, many people stayed in the hotel every year without the intention of buying. The kitchen provided all meals guests desired. Cards, bingo and access to all resort facilities rounded out the package. Click on the photo to see more
Click on the page above. This brochure was published for the summer of 1901. It was probably sent out to attract hotel guests for the summer. For a period of time the hotel published a newsletter for the guests. This was always more entertainment than news except to list as many guest names in print as possible. One of the best articles has been transcribed. Click here to read about the 1934 Topless Controversy at Belvedere Beach	The guest register from 1913 survives. Each guest signed in and in many cases listed everyone who would be staying with them including children. I found my great grandparents listed along with their 4 daughters one of whom was my grandmother (August 16, 1913). Click to see the gallery and look for you relatives. Both the guests and many staying in the cottages would attend Bingo games in the Hotel parlor. In 1960 the hotel required extensive renovation to keep it safe and meet new standards. By then the age of old fashioned resort hotels had passed and The Belvedere was a break-even only proposition in good years. The resort decided that the $1 million required was not worth it. We now enjoy a large green space between the Casino and the Ofice. Click on the photo to see more	Belvedere hotel outline courtesy of the Charlevoix historical Society Version 1.0: The year after the resort was founded and the first six cottages went up in 1879, a 16 room boarding house was added for the members, their guests and those who’d come north to oversee their cottage construction. The building was located just to the east of the Association’s current office behind a picket fence on Belvedere Avenue. Many resort wives and mothers appreciated its existence because they came up to relax, not to cook. The structure began to serve as a de facto hotel that catered to Association members and their guests whom they couldn’t accommodate in their own cottages. It was not open to the public, but was included in the Charlevoix Sentinel newspaper’s annual tally of hotel and boarding house guest registrations. In fact, it became so popular that larger dining facilities had to be added on the south side, with one long porch fronting both façades. The one-story addition also began to be used as a meeting hall for the resort’s social activities. Fire destroyed the boardinghouse in 1886. Fortunately the addition was spared, only singed. Version 2.0 Realizing that a rapidly burgeoning resort industry was creating so much increased demand for rooms in Charlevoix, the Association decided to replace the boardinghouse with a true public hotel. In 1887, the 40 room “New Belvedere house” opened on the same spot, where the old dining/meeting hall was and it was incorporated into the new building. Some photos and postcards show the spelling to be “Belvidere”. To this day, no one seems to know exactly how or why the word Belvedere was chosen, Italian for “beautiful view”. The first railroad schedule of 1892 refers to the stop as Belvedere in line with the hotel name, not the resort. By 1923 Belvedere eventually came to stand for the whole resort. Railroad service caused a skyrocketing demand for hotel rooms in Charlevoix. Two expansions resulted and by 1902 the hotel reached its final size of 84 rooms. The 1892 modernization had included two bathrooms, utilized by appointment only. Otherwise it was suggested to guests that they were welcome to bathe in the often frigid waters of Pine Lake (it did not become Lake Charlevoix until 1926). From then on the hotel would burst at the seams. The last touch was the addition of the solarium on the east side and the construction of the resorts and hotels social center, the casino, both in 1923. Many hotel convention meetings took place in the latter the Belvedere went on to become one of the most popular summer resort hotels in the Midwest. For all its reputation, the Belvedere Hotel was quite bare-bones with its exposed water pipes and austere, almost clinical decor. Only a few wicker pieces added an attempted style. She was like a grand, rather stern dowager who didn’t believe in any hint of frivolity. The aging dowager saw less and less patronage patronage and maintenance after World War II and it came to depend on conventions. The last one at the hotel was held by a group of square dancers. Resort hotels all over the country now had to contend with the beginnings of interstate highway system. Also jet travel was taking people out of the country where they didn’t just sit on along front porch in a rocking chair to idle the days away. Visitors reported sinking into a lobby couch and being surrounded by a faint cloud of dust. Soon the wind was the only thing rocking the chairs. The Belvedere cut down to a capacity of 47 guests using fewer than half of the rooms. After a decade of discussion, in 1959 a study showed that to bring it back up and redecorate, $100,000 would be required, that being the equivalent of more than 1 million of today’s dollars. The resort Association decided wasn’t worth the investment for an uncertain future. 1960 would have have to be the last season. Wreckers went to work on November 3, 1960 that year and many Charlevoix people became very emotional. It was like losing an old friend. The Belvedere hotel had become a memory. It’s very hard around the corner from Belvedere on the ferry Avenue and visualize the hotel of its size once covering the lawn that now occupies the site.