It's slowly being weathered away on the side of a downtown Sault Ste. Marie building, but it's still legible.
The public advertisement says, "Grand Motel - 23 new units - 9 blocks"
While the ad is still there, the Grand Motel has been long gone.
According to John Venious, his grandfather, Fred Bye, starting building the motel in the summer of 1957 and officially opened up for business in July, 1958 at 1100 E. Portage Ave., nine blocks from downtown Sault Ste. Marie.
The motel had "19 completely modern and spacious units, ceramic tile baths with tub and shower combinations. It was completely carpeted with individually controlled electric heat."
Julie Venious, granddaughter of Bye, said he built the motel for his daughter, Emma, to manage. She ran that motel while she and her family lived upstairs in the living quarters.
Both Julie and John have fond memories of that time in their young lives.
"I was five years old, and all us grandkids skated on the ice rink that grandpa made on the property. He actually had an advertisement on TV saying you could stay there and skate. Also, we watched the Thanksgiving Day parade on our color TV. He was the first person to have a color TV in Sault Ste. Marie," Julie recalled.
John has a fond, different memory that involved a famous country singer.
"I was 14 and was the groundskeeper at the motel. I had a moped. Faron Young was in town putting on a show at the Pullar. I went down there one morning, and he had his trailer there and was singing 'Congratulations' which was a new song. He saw my motorbike and asked if he could ride it. I let him ride it, and he took off and was gone well over half an hour and went all over town. In return he said he was going to give me tickets for his show. He never did," John chuckled.
Bye sold the motel in 1964.
"He was an entrepreneur. He sold it for the money and bought another. He had several businesses around town," John said.
The new owners were Harold and Pat Finnerty.
Their daughter, Therese, explains how and why they purchased the motel.
"My dad previously had an oil and gas pipeline company in Lansing called Shamrock Construction. He dissolved the company and asked mom what they should do next. Her answer was, 'I've always wanted to own a motel!' So they started looking.
"I remember we looked in Ludington and Manistique. I'm not exactly sure why they picked the Sault. They bought it in 1964 and sold in 1976.
"They didn't want to sell it to just anyone but rather only to someone who would take care of it as mom had. I had several older siblings that lived in Southern Michigan, so maybe that was why. My dad only stayed in one place about a year before he was back working in the oil and gas business for Michigan Consolidated Gas. So mom ran the motel by herself, pretty unusual for a woman in 1965.
"She was a dynamo! In the summer, she went to bed about midnight and got up at 5 a.m. She took a lot of pride in making sure the motel was as neat as a pin. She won several beautification awards in the 60s and 70s. There was a large flower bed under the sign, one by the carport, and flowers all around the outside wall of the motel.
"Believe me, I was the one who had to weed all the flowers. My brother Joe is a year older than me, and the two of us had to sweep down the parking lot and then spray what was left with a hose, once a week. We took down all the storm windows, put them away in our basement and washed and put up all the screens in the spring and reversed the process in the Fall.
"She had hired ladies to clean the rooms. They were like family to us. She had the same ladies for many, many years.
"My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer with an 18-month prognosis towards the end of my senior year in high school, and mom didn't want to try to sell it on her own, so they sold it when I started college at Lake State. They moved to Eaton Rapids then. He actually lived six and a half years after ward, long enough to see my brother and I graduate from college," Therese explained.
According to documents at the Chippewa Co. Register of Deeds office, David and Marion Forrest owned the property after the Finnertys. Eventually, in 1992, the Forrests entered a land contract with Frank and Barbara Berlek.
Today, the Last Resort/Wild Bill's Bait and Tackle is owned by Dave Atkinson. In 2009, Atkinson purchased the property in an auction.
