Journey: Postcard from Georgia’s Jekyll Island

On Jekyll Island, a barrier island off Georgia’s southern coast close to the border with Florida, stands a remnant of the Gilded Age.

The Jekyll Island Club, based in 1886 by J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, William Ok. Vanderbilt and others, was created as a personal winter refuge for America’s richest households. Members arrived on the 5,700-acre island every winter both by yacht or on a ferry after taking a practice to a close-by station on the mainland.

At its peak, the membership was stated to host one-sixth of the world’s wealth. And but, the clubhouse with its turreted façade conveyed refinement slightly than extra.

Life adopted a predictable rhythm. Afternoons included golf, driving and looking. Dinner within the eating room was consistent with the period’s costume codes and sensibilities, however dialog was hardly ever idle. It was right here in 1910 that a number of financiers drafted the plan that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve.

After the conflict, Georgia’s state authorities bought the island — named within the early 1700s by British colonists for Sir Joseph Jekyll, a outstanding politician of the period — and created a state park. State possession spared Jekyll from the postwar resort improvement that endlessly modified the character of many coastal communities.

Today, the Jekyll Island Club Resort is each a resort and a historic landmark. Guests stroll the identical oak-shaded paths as soon as utilized by the Morgans, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. The resort anchors the Jekyll Island Historic District, a 240-acre space with greater than 30 interval buildings.

Among them are the so-called cottages — substantial homes that served as seasonal residences. Crane Cottage, inbuilt 1917 by Chicago industrialist Richard Teller Crane Jr., shows Italian Renaissance symmetry, whereas Indian Mound, constructed for the Rockefellers, displays shingle-style simplicity.

Faith Chapel, accomplished in 1904, was established as a nondenominational home of worship, regardless that many members had been Episcopalians. Inside the wood-shingled chapel is a vivid stained-glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany titled “David Set Singers Before the Lord.” It depicts King David commanding singers to reward God and is among the few Tiffany home windows recognized to bear the artist’s signature.

Two-thirds of the island stays protected against improvement. The seashores, dunes and forest look a lot as they did when the membership was based. Driftwood Beach, on the northern finish, is understood for weathered timber, which look otherworldly. The Georgia Sea Turtle Center, housed in a transformed interval constructing, rehabilitates injured turtles.

Back on the resort, the general public rooms, together with the eating room with its excessive ceilings and polished wooden, protect a turn-of-the-last-century ambiance even when company now not costume the half. The visitor rooms, in contrast, are trendy and include all of the conveniences anticipated of a resort carrying a three-diamond score from AAA.

Spring and summer time deliver the warmest days, however a winter go to greatest mirrors what members of the unique membership skilled. Christmas is especially putting, because the resort is illuminated by greater than 2 million lights.

If you go

Jekyll Island is about an hour’s drive north of Jacksonville, Florida, or 90 minutes south of Savannah, Georgia. The nearest business airport — throughout a six-mile-long causeway — is Brunswick Golden Isles Airport, although most guests fly out and in of Jacksonville.

The Jekyll Island Club Resort, a non-chain resort operated by Noble House Hotels & Resorts, affords 200 rooms within the historic membership in addition to a number of cottages which might be standard with massive households and teams. Additionally, the resort features a trendy, all-suite beachfront resort, the Jekyll Ocean Club. While two distinct lodges, they function as one property and company have privileges all through the resort.

Dennis Lennox writes a journey column for The Christian Post.