Brookside Inn and the Hotel Frankfort: Glory Days

I was starting to get desperate when I was finally hired at the Hotel Frankfort and the Brookside Inn. It had been a long time between paychecks. Restaurant work intimidated me. It was housekeeping work that I applied for.

The Hotel Frankfort after the front facade was completed,
 and the Knight's room, Teddy Bear, and Victorian Rooms were added.
The turret is covered with copper.
When they first put that on, it could be seen from way out in Lake Michigan from the boats! So pretty.

In the dining room of the Hotel Frankfort, a blond hostess was walking around on very high heel shoes. I dubbed her princess, right then and there. Construction was going on:The sounds of hammer, saws, and more provided the music in the dining room at that time. The wine cellar was being dug under the dining room. They were bringing up bucket-fulls of dirt and ashes-the hotel had burned down in the 20's and the new building was just kind of slapped on the old. One corner of the building was resting on an old bathroom sink!

I started in housekeeping and was put in Grandma's care. She had curlers in  her hair. I really liked her and miss her but I don't think I ever knew to call her anything but Grandma! Once I saw the rooms I was to clean, I remembered Mom coming home from Gwen Frostics with a brochure in her hands. "Look what they are bringing to our county!" She said, appalled and indignant. The brochure talked about these rooms with waterbeds and hot tubs. Initially, there was a different rate system: Three hours, so many hours with dinner, overnight with breakfast... I can't recall how it was worded now. The idea was that people would enjoy the hot tub availability. 

As a housekeeper, I was glad this system was not in place any more. 

"All of our rooms include a king-sized mirrored canopy waterbed, a 7x7x3 foot deep Polynesian spa, a little log stove, complete dinner and breakfast for two and all taxes and tips. Some rooms also include a sauna, a steam shower, a French suntanning solarium, or combinations of those items."

Formerly Case's Dairy, an ice cream parlor. Then Dennys. Not the chain. 

When I started working, there were just eleven rooms at the Brookside and eight couple's rooms at the Hotel, with three more in the process of being built. The rooms had themes. There were no room numbers. The keys were on heart shaped pillow fobs and guests were always shown to their rooms by the host or hostess, who explained how the hot tubs worked, how to light the log in the little log stoves, how to use the sauna, dinner and breakfast hours, and to please have their room key on the table so the wait staff knew they were guests and which room they were in. 

 Room names at the Brookside Inn were Raspberry, Lace, Pillow, Copper, Basket, Scandinavian, Country, New Orleans, Garden, Oriental (which became Cloud Nine), and Victorian, with newer rooms Whimsicality, Polynesian, Willow Wisp, Abbigal's Attic, Eden View, Nicoles Hide Away, Sweet Dreams. The Hotel Frankfort had Pearls and Lace, Chantilly, Evening in Paris, Dimity, White Linen, Le Jardin, Jontue, Knights, Teddy Bear, and Victorian.

When cleaning was done in the rooms, we were supposed to vacuum out backwards to give the rooms a foot-print free fresh look. My boss, Scott, would invariably scare the crap out of me by tapping me on the shoulder or just showing up while I was vacuuming out...

Every now and again, something would poke a hole in the waterbed mattress. I remember one day, Jim, the maintenance guy, and I were pushing back on the mattress while Scott patched a hole that was way underneath. Rip! My pants split. Nothing I could do about it but hold the mattress up and hope I had good undies on.

There were some old hotel rooms remaining for a while at the Hotel Frankfort. There were some people, fishermen in particular, that would just kind of check themselves in and pay at breakfast time. Those rooms were pretty bad to begin with!

I learned how to bartend after housekeeping a while to increase my hours. One of the first things I did was try to mix strawberry daiquiris without the lid on the blender. (Smeltzer strawberries!) The second thing I did was dump a tray of four or five Long Island Ice Teas on a customer. She was wearing white. Boy was she ticked!

House wines used to be Dourthe Vin Rouge and Dourthe Vin Blanc. Freixenet champagne was available for room guests. Hah! Remember that? Then, Pam and Kirk brought in the German wines!

I used to feel like I owned the cellar after becoming a wine steward. It was a lot of fun introducing people to these German wines. I did a good job of matching people to taste, even if they preferred beer! 

I remember the first wine training. My experience with wine had been Mogan David or Boones Farm previously. It tasted like rotten grapes to me anyway! But this group of unsophisticated staffers was treated to some interesting wines. I remember hearing someone say a wine smelled like wet poodles with permanents. Siegerrebe grapes tasted like hay or straw, I recall. Not a favorite. Now, Muller Thurgau-Mario Muskat, yum! And this is also the beginning of a long love for Trollmanchen and the Schlossmuhle Troll red and white sparkling wine, or sekt. Since the rooms were for couples to do, er, couples things in, we offered great sekts to enhance their experience.

Our guests were special, many seeming like family. 

There was the couple who were staying at the Hotel who inadvertently set off the sprinklers in their room!  I was hostessing at the Brookside Inn that night and got the call that we were moving them to Beulah, and could I dry their things and get them settled in? Later on, Kirk gifted this couple, regular guests, with a sprinkler head from the original room. Last I heard, it hold a place of honor on their fireplace mantle. Married for some years back then and still hot enough to set off the sprinklers!

A leap year wedding was going to happen. The bride and groom just wanted a simple wedding. She didn't even have a dress. By the time this event happened, so many things fell into place for them! She got a beautiful dress, like a Gunne Sax style, that fit the atmosphere of the Hotel Frankfort. There was a photograph taken of her coming down the staircase, reflected in a beautiful mirror on the landing. Breathtaking!

So many weddings. So many proposals! One of the last ones I recall, a fellow had a toy dog that walked, like a yorkie or pomeranian or something. He attached the ring to the dog with a ribbon. At dinner,he walked the doggie to his intended and had it do tricks...She said yes, by the way.

One time a guest came early and asked for help setting up a surprise in the hot tub for his wife. He had plastic eggs, each with a little surprise inside. Another fellow showed us a ring he had made for his wife. It was beautiful, delicately sculptured diamond ring. He asked us to tuck it into a dessert and present it to his wife. We got to be in on so many surprises over the  years!

So many stories! So many years! There will be a couple more posts with stories from the Brookside Inn and Hotel Frankfort. I learned a lot there, made good friends. I miss it.

(The photographs included here are from postcards, done by John Penrod)