People would take the Michigan Central Railroad to Grand Beach station, rent small cottages for a day or two, eat in the dining hall (located at the corner of Lakeview and Whitewood), and enjoy bathing and golfing.

The pier has long since disappeared, though its supporting posts are sometimes visible when the lake levels are low.

The hotel was an important part of the social life of the beach in the 1920s, even in the winter when it hosted ski jumping events.

[7] The public golf course has been an integral part of village life at Grand Beach since its establishment.

One of them, the Ernest Vosburgh Summer House (built in 1916) on Ravine Road near Crescent and Royal, still retains much of its original design.

[8] The 1950s brought relative decline as all of Southwest Michigan was bypassed by Chicagoans in favor of more exotic resorts.

However, beginning in the 1980s, Grand Beach and nearby New Buffalo have undergone a renaissance as a charming, unpretentious, yet accessible resort area.

The former Forest Beach YWCA camp was developed as a gated community with multimillion-dollar homes, thus giving the area a slightly more upscale image.

In recent decades Grand Beach has probably been most famous because of its association with Chicago's Daley family.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 0.91 square miles (2.36 km2), all land.