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According to Holland historian Donald Van Reken, the following year was a disaster for the Ottawa Beach resort because the World's Fair or Columbian Exposition in Chicago stole many potential visitors. But, in another of his books, Mr. Van Reken writes that 1893 was a good year for Macatawa Park which had plenty of visitors. Chicago Day at the fair broke all attendance records with three quarters of a million people passing through the turnstiles.

The Association couldn't pay the interest on their bonds, and the mortgage was forclosed by trustee Henry Spring, who was both the mortgager and mortgagee. The Hotel Ottawa, the undeveloped park areas and unsold cottage lots were sold literally on the steps of the County Courthouse to Charles Heald. In addition to being the president of the Chicago and West Michigan railway, Heald was also head of the railway's Central Land Company. Heald boldly drew up a new plat map with over a hundred additional cottage lots available on the protected park lands. The existing cottage owners' West Michigan Park Association cried foul and successfully got an injunction to stop this land grab by pleading that the designated parks were jointly held by their cottage owners for the enjoyment of all and the financial gain of no one. The mortgage problem

The hotel was still open for business on September 11th of 1894 when John Jacob Astor IV, great grandson of the wealthiest man in America was a guest. Mr. Astor died 18 years later in the sinking of the Titanic.

In 1895, the Grand Rapids Yacht Club was started in a Lake Macatawa boat house shared by Ottawa Beach residents James Bayne and Addison Barber. There was a long row of wooden boat houses built by cottagers on the Lake Macatawa lake shore adjacent to the Hotel Ottawa. This view looking north east shows the Hotel Ottawa boat livery in the foreground.