Stafford Smith on the porch of Stafford's Bay View Inn. Plaque on wall indicates membership in Select Registry: Distinguished Inns of North America, organization headed by Mr. Smith. Petoskey Hotel Icon Stafford Smith Had Only One Job All His Life
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The kindly old gentleman in a "Mr. Rogers" sweater came by, nodding in a friendly manner, as he poured coffee at Stafford's Bay View Inn restaurant.
"Who's that?" my wife Dolores and I wondered. "Probably a volunteer, or a part-time host," she ventured.
"Sir, I'm looking for the owner, Mr. Stafford Smith, I want to interview him for MyBayCity.com," I asked the old gentleman.
"I'm Stafford Smith," the mild-mannered coffee pourer responded, like Superman coming out of the phone booth after having entered as Clark Kent.
Sitting down with this reporter over a cup of coffee on the front porch of the small Victorian hotel, Mr. Smith explained that he began work at that same place 50 years ago as a 19-year-old part-time waiter during the summer. He never left and working at the inn is the only job he ever had, or needed.
The story of how he returned every summer after studies at Albion College, worked full time three summers, met his wife Janice, a Flint native, who worked there as a hostess and bought the hotel in 1961 is worthy of a Horatio Alger comparison.
Now the avuncular, unassuming Mr. Smith not only owns the Bay View Inn he also owns the 63-room Perry Hotel in Petoskey, the Weathervane Restaurant in Charlevoix and the Pier Restaurant in Harbor Springs.
"Summer after summer people would come here from steamy areas like Cincinnati, St. Louis and Chicago to get away from the sticky heat," he observed, smilingly refilling my coffee cup.
"In 1959, the Mackinac Bridge opened and people came from all over to see this marvel," he recalled. "I was on the desk then and we turned over every night," explaining that new guests came every night and left to see the bridge.
Just then Stafford's trolley arrived, packed with tourists, and Mrs. Stafford alighted, came on the porch and explained that the trolley used to run on Belle Isle in Detroit. "He makes me work," she complained, smiling. When I noted that new trolleys cost about $250,000, he explained that he bought this one well-used for $10,000 and refurbished the bargain vehicle that has served well for several years
Her "cute little Southern accent" that attracted Mr. Smith was acquired during a college career at the University of Northern Alabama, Florence. Smith explained that her twin brother went South on a football scholarship and "he came home but she stayed and finished."
Mr. Smith's once-in-a-lifetime, golden opportunity came when he was assistant manager of the Bay View and the owner, a professor at Michigan Tech in Houghton, took a new job and decided part-time hotel ownership was too much.
"He couldn't find a buyer so he set us up in business," Mr. Smith recalled, noting that he bought the hotel in May 1961. Dr. Roy Heath, a Ph.D. in Chemistry who had worked on the Manhattan Project (atomic bomb development) had owned the hotel for eight years.
"The stars were aligned for us," said Mr. Smith, "we were both 22 when we took over."
They tore the lobby apart and redid it, winterized the place and got in on the skiing and snow sports boom early. The entire hotel was refurbished little by little, the Smiths doing some of the work themselves.
"This place was like a big cottage with no foundation, sitting on cedar piers," he said. "Putting in a foundation was a major undertaking and we spent as much in the 1963 renovation as we paid for the hotel."
The Bay View is like a 16-room mini Grand Hotel. It was built in 1886 is one of only two inns at Bay View, which continues its long history from the days of the Chautauqua summer retreats.
There are no TVs in the inn which has banned smoking for 14 years and has diaries in the rooms for guests to write comments like "We are looking forward to vespers on Sunday night," by a couple from Kettering, Ohio. Because of weddings and corporate meetings, the inn has had a liquor license for two years.
The Smiths acquired the Pier Restaurant at Harbor Springs in 1970 and the Perry Hotel in 1989 and a little later the Weathervane Restaurant in Charlevoix, a picturesque building that originally was a grist mill.
How Mr. Smith acquired the Perry is a story worthy of a crime novel. He was brought in by Old Kent Bank to evaluate the Perry after the previous owner, Arthur Curry, went bankrupt in 1988. Desperate to raise cash to keep the hotel going, Curry had kidnapped the wife of a wealthy industrialist, hoping for a ransom. Curry was caught and is still in prison.
The Hemingway Society uses the Perry as a main attraction since it was an early hangout of their hero, famed writer Ernest Hemingway. "Serious Hemingway fans come from all over and the connection is good for us," Mr. Smith related.
(MyBayCity Photo by Dave Rogers)
Dolores and I took the Hemingway tour, sponsored by Central Michigan University. A visit to the family's Walloon Lake cottage was narrated by Hemingway's nephew, the colorful, ebullient Ernest Hemingway Mainland, a retired insurance executive. Mainland and Mr. Smith are both longtime Rotary Club members, and one of the two Petoskey clubs meets Wednesdays at 12:15 p.m. at the Stafford Inn.
Hemingway is featured in a video production "Ernest Hemingway: Life in Michigan," celebrating the years "Ernie" spent in Northern Michigan and his "Nick Adams" stories set in Petoskey and nearby Horton Bay. The Michigan Humanities Council is using Hemingway's books as part of its "The Great Michigan Read" reading promotion program now underway.
Bay View is one of America's five remaining Chautauqua resorts, which offer four pillars of activity: religion, recreation, arts and education.
Houses at Bay View were rapidly built without kitchens and the social set that summered there took their meals in a main dining building.
Bay View is a privately-owned association with leasehold memberships affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The 350 acres are part of Bear Creek Township and are assessed on one tax bill. There are 444 cottages and two hotels.
According to the lease and association rules, the cottages may not be occupied from November to May. Since 1968 Mr. Smith has had a deal with the association to remain open all year. So members who come up to check their properties often stay at Stafford's Bay View Inn, he said.
The Smiths spend seven months a year in Arizona and return to work the gorgeous northern Michigan summers.
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