Hotel Perry

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, city-dwellers from the Midwest escaped hot summers in the fresh air of northern Michigan. Constructed in 1899 for Norman J. Perry, the Hotel Perry catered to these vacationers with its location near Little Traverse Bay and the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad Depot. At the Perry, a Petoskey social hub, guests and local citizens attended “hops” and enjoyed the hotel orchestra. One of the city’s earliest brick buildings, the hotel was advertised in 1900 as “fire proof” and boasted steam heat, electric service, a barber shop, a buffet restaurant, and a newsstand. The Hotel Perry is included in the Petoskey Downtown National Register Historic District.