JEKYLL ISLAND, Ga. — Long before the legendary Jekyll Island Club Resort became a hotel, the island was already notable for several reasons, the foremost probably being its prime location on the Golden Isles, part of the cluster of barrier islands strung like a pearl necklace along Georgia’s coast. It is a beautiful, romantic place, a combination of ocean, maritime forests drizzled with Spanish moss and wide stretches of beach.
The Queen Anne-style hotel, with its grand turret, swaying palms and verdant gardens, is a living testament to the subtle grandeur of coastal Georgia as it was during the resort era of the late 1800s and early 1900s. At its heart, the Jekyll Island Club was originally founded in 1886 as an exclusive hunting retreat for members of America’s highest society — the Vanderbilts, Morgans, Pulitzers, Goodyears and Rockefellers — the Gilded Age tycoons who once journeyed to this pristine island of sand, surf and natural beauty to relax, hunt its abundant wildlife and escape the harsh winters of the North. Munsey’s Magazine called the club, “The richest, the most exclusive, the most inaccessible club in the world.”
From the mainland, the drive across the causeway to Jekyll Island is scenic and aromatic with silky, endless sweeps of cordgrass marsh, also called spartina, all ruffled by salty breezes of the Atlantic and sprinkled with flocks of wood storks, ibises and herons. The allure of the island is completed with dazzling sunrises and sunsets, and the air is always cloaked in shards of silvered and golden sunlight, which lends the entire area its sobriquet of the Golden Isles.
The salt-tinged fragrance of the ocean affords a splendid backdrop for quiet evenings spent on one of the Jekyll Island Club’s multitudes of wraparound verandas. A nice touch is that the gentle climate allows lush lawn to flourish, nurturing it to a deep emerald hue, even in the deepest chill of winter months. The Spanish moss flowing from the scores of massive live oaks and the fresh scent of sweet magnolias complete the picture of seaside serenity.
Jekyll Island’s distinctive genesis can be traced to its earliest inhabitants, the Native Americans, and to 1733, when Georgia founder General James Edward Oglethorpe came here, eventually naming it in honor of his friend and mentor, Sir Joseph Jekyll.
The windswept island belonged primarily to the duBignon family from 1794 into the 1800s and then through the Civil War until 1886 when the Jekyll Island Club sprang out of an idea of Newton Finney, a New York merchant. Finney was the brother-in-law of John Eugene duBignon, the last of the duBignons to own the island. Finney had links to the Union Club in New York, one of the most exclusive clubs in the world then. At the time, its roster of members read like a who’s who of business and industry: William Rockefeller, William K. Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, Marshall Field, Frank Henry Goodyear and myriad other financiers and industrialists.
Finney persuaded them to come to Jekyll Island, and then following the first sales of shares to the well-to-do, the club members invested in building an elegant clubhouse, complete with Queen Anne architecture, indoor plumbing, dozens of fireplaces, wraparound porches and a dramatic turret. It was completed in 1888, with later additions of the Grand Dining Room with its Ionic columns, telephone service and an elevator. The members spent most of their winters on the island.
The members also built lavish “cottages” that were reflective of their affluent lifestyles during that period. The Goodyear Cottage, as an illustration, was an Italianate mansion that took four years to build and was completed in 1906. Crane Cottage was built in 1917 for Richard Teller Crane Jr., and Cherokee Cottage was constructed in 1904 for Dr. and Mrs. George Shrady of New York. Mistletoe, a Dutch Colonial Revival home, was originally constructed for Henry Kirk Porter, and Villa Ospo, completed in 1927, is a mixture of Spanish Eclectic and Italian Renaissance. Some of the homes included indoor swimming pools and tennis courts — almost unheard of at the time.
The Jekyll Island Club flourished into the 1920s and '30s, but the Great Depression and then World War II, including the presence of German submarines off the coast of Georgia, changed everything. The club, with its steed of old money, blue-blood family ties and aging members, faded away and it virtually went bankrupt, which left no option other than to close it down.
After World War II ended, efforts were made to revive it, but those failed, too. Long story short, the state of Georgia stepped in and took over ownership with plans to transform it into a state park. The clubhouse later reopened as a sort of bed-and-breakfast, but essentially the only people who traveled to Jekyll Island were those who owned boats, as the causeway had not yet been built that connected the island to the mainland. Certainly, then, tourists and their dollars were really very few and far between, and Jekyll Island was difficult to maintain.
Even with the addition of a drawbridge in 1954, the clubhouse eventually was shut down until the 1980s because of deterioration and neglect. That’s when two friends, one a lawyer and the other an architect, climbed through an unlocked window and fell in love with the once-grand structure. In 1987, the Jekyll Island Club Resort reopened its doors, preserved and renovated to its original splendor. From its richly appointed rooms to the intricate scrollwork to its manicured gardens, the hotel is once more a palatial resort in the best of Southern traditions and experiences. Its Queen Anne style, including that spectacular turret and dozens of bay windows, remind its visitors of the good taste and grace of bygone eras.
Seven dining spots pepper the resort, including the Grand Dining Room, currently open only for breakfast. The story is that the original members were required to dine in the clubhouse’s dining room, where they were often served sumptuous 10-course meals.
The award-winning hotel is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and is designated a Historic Hotel of America by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The historic district — spread over 240 acres and composed of 34 buildings including the hotel, cottages and other structures such as stables and tennis courts — looks basically the same as it did during the island’s halcyon days.
At the end of the day at the Jekyll Island Club, as I watched and listened to the seagulls jabbering in the ocean air, tasted the saltiness of the endless acres of the peaceful marsh, and sensed the whisperings of Gilded Age ghosts, I realized this historic place captures the heart and soul of romance as no other place can.
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If you go
The Jekyll Island Club and Cottages is located at 371 Riverview Drive, Jekyll Island. Call the hotel directly at 912-319-4349 or reservations at 888-445-3179.
The Jekyll Ocean Club, its sister property, is located at 80 Ocean Way, Jekyll Island. Call directly at 912-319-4348 or reservations at 866-342-3683.
Bicycle rentals are available. Visit www.jekyllclub.com.
Jekyll Island is a one-hour drive north from Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), a one-hour drive south from Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) and a half-hour drive from Brunswick-Golden Isles Airport (BQK).
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