The Dempsey Manor Inn & House Museum
The Discriminating Traveler's
Premiere Destination in Northwest Michigan
CURRENT EVENTS AT DEMPSEY MANOR – encompass a variety of activities. For current information please call (616) 802-4588.
Visitors Welcome!
The Dempsey Manor Inn is a locally operated, historical House Museum. It opens its doors to visitors for TOURS of its opulent interiors, informational talks about its history, architecture, period collections of furnishings, and fine & decorative arts. Advance reservations are required.
GUIDED TOURS.
Tours feature the main floor, including the stunning, atrium-style Grand Foyer, the inviting Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Parlors, the elegant Dining Room, the intimate Library with its impressive built in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and the all-glass Conservatory. This amazing Victorian styled room was added by the previous owners in 2000.
Those who wish will also see the beautifully-appointed guest rooms on the second and third floors. All TOURS are available by advance reservation.
Donations to the Dempsey Manor Preservation Fund are gratefully accepted.
CALL US AT 616-802-4588
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND RESERVATIONS
This imposing mansion, located at 506 Maple Street in the lovely little city of Manistee, was built in 1894 for lumber baron James Dempsey, his wife Mary and four of their 12 children.
The Dempsey is the largest still-standing Victorian-era residence in Manistee and a tribute to the city’s historical heritage.
Since the mansion was sold out of the Dempsey family in 1947, it has served as a boarding house catering to student teachers, an assisted living facility, and the home of a retired couple who had dreamed of living in just such place.
The Dempsey is currently owned by James Colburn and Jan Peterson who have operated it as a luxury bed and breakfast inn and Victorian house museum since 2014. It is furnished and decorated from Colburn’s lifetime collections of exquisite antique furniture, world-class artwork and decorative items and a treasury of rare pieces.
Colburn, who enjoyed a career as an Emmy-nominated Hollywood set designer and decorator, thinks of the mansion as his last and most wonderful set.
Explore the small unchanged Victorian Port City of Manistee. . . the village town not yet on any beaten path. Dig your toes into clean sugar-fine sand and the warm summer waters of Lake Michigan. Or take an aerial tour of the town and the coastline from Manistee's Blacker Airport (with service to Chicago).
Four historic walking tours, a floating museum (The SS City of Milwaukee), the famous Ramsdell Opera House (now the Manistee Regional Center for the Arts), the unique grove of California giant sequoias and redwoods at Lake Bluff Center, and of course, the incomparable James Dempsey living Victorian House Museum -- these historic treasures coupled with every water & outdoor sport and leisure activity under the sun, make Manistee YOUR undiscovered country.
