Conde Nast's best hotels list includes 5 in Michigan, including 2 in Detroit

When it comes to fancy places to stay, a third of Conde Nast Traveler's top Midwest hotels are in Michigan: two in Detroit, the Detroit Foundation Hotel and Shinola Hotel; one in Houghton, the Vault Hotel, and two on Mackinac Island, the Island House Hotel and Hotel Iroquois.

The five hotels are a mix of old and new tourist destinations, including Detroit, which, until the past few years was better known for making music and cars than as a place folks aspired to go to for a vacation.

"Detroit is starting to get the national recognition our city so richly deserves from a travel and tourism perspective," Claude Molinari, the CEO of Visit Detroit, said. "Conde Nast is a preeminent travel publication and having them recognize the exceptional Foundation and Shinola hotels is a validation for Detroit and will certainly help convince more people they need to visit southeast Michigan."

Exactly how much of a boost the magazine's honors offer hotels is difficult to measure, but the Foundation Hotel quickly seized the opportunity to issue a news release touting that it is No. 3 on the list and the fact that this is the fourth consecutive time it has been recognized.

Shinola Hotel, the other Detroit location on the list, came in just a few places down at No. 6.

The Vault Hotel, the only hotel on the list in the Upper Peninsula, is No. 9. And the other two Michigan hotels, which are between Michigan's two peninsulas, the Island House Hotel and Hotel Iroquois, are No. 10 and No. 12, respectively.

Other Midwest hotels on the travel magazine's list are in Cincinnati; Delafield, Wisconsin; Indianapolis, three hotels; Milwaukee, two hotels; Minneapolis; Oberlin, Ohio, and Oklahoma City.

A variety of rating and ranking systems use certain criteria to evaluate properties, including the Forbes Travel Guide, formerly known as the Mobil Travel Guide, which uses stars, and American Automobile Association, which uses diamonds.

But unlike the five-star and five-diamond systems, which use judges to rate the hotels, the travel magazine asked its readers to weigh in, scoring the hotels with detailed criteria on a five-point scale. Conde Nast said it tabulated hundreds of thousands of results and the best scores determined the winners.

The Foundation Hotel, Shinola Hotel, and the Vault Hotel are all newer hotels, having opened in historic locations within the past decade, while the Island House Hotel and Hotel Iroquois, are more than a century old, with what some call character and charm.

In its recent announcement touting the award, the Foundation Hotel calls itself a "chic, 100-room boutique" property that "has been an integral part of Detroit's recent history, opening in 2017 as part of the city's renewal." It also notes it uses a historic space, the city's "original fire department headquarters."

The Shinola Hotel opened in 2018 in an eight-story building off Woodward, which originally was a hardware store and more recently was Eastern Wig & Hair. Shinola, a watch and luxury goods company that started in 2011, made a splash by touting it sold items "built in Detroit."

The Vault Hotel opened in 2019 in an old bank building. The hotel highlights that it is in a Richardson Romanesque-style building, the first stone and masonry structure in Houghton that was renovated and is now "at the center of everything in downtown Houghton."

On Mackinac Island, the Island House Hotel and Hotel Iroquois opened in 1852 and 1904, respectively.

Still, the Victorian Island House Hotel notes that despite its distinction as the "most historic hotel on the island," it has "undergone a remarkable transformation, becoming a cherished historic waterfront establishment."

And the Hotel Iroquois, which also has Victorian architectural motifs, was once home to 19th-century blacksmith Robert Benjamin, who became sheriff. Benjamin's wife, however, didn't like living so close to the water so they sold it, and the new owner remade it into a hotel.

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Conde Nast's best hotels list shows Detroit getting recognition