Travelers in Michigan State who regularly cross the Mackinac Bridge will never fail to catch a sight of, and be entranced by, the Victorian-style Grand Hotel off in Mackinac Island. Built in 1887, it boasts having the largest front porch in the world, plus a who’s who of historic guests.
One motorist who’s been enamored with regularly seeing the Grand Hotel from Mackinac Bridge is University of Michigan engineer David Lorch. A LEGO builder himself, Lorch built a 9-foot scale model of the Mackinac Grand Hotel in 2017 for their 130th Anniversary event. He now plans to remake his MOC into a LEGO Ideas submission.
As shown on the video above, the Ideas version of Dr. Lorch’s Mackinac Grand Hotel in LEGO manages to retain details of the actual building. With 710 pieces, Lorch managed to capture the look of the many pillars supporting the “world’s largest porch” as well as its blue painted ceiling.
The Mackinac Grand Hotel product idea is a fairly recent addition to the LEGO Ideas platform of submissions. As of this writing it has managed to gain about 1,241 supporters, with 428 days remaining to reach the review-ready 10-K mark.
This remarkable micro-build makes for a quaint celebration of the over-a-century old hotel which has hosted five US Presidents, Thomas Edison and Mark Twain, not to mention becoming a National Historic Landmark. It’s a great conversion of David Lorch’s original 9-foot model, just the right dimensions for a LEGO set.
