Jekyll Island Club Resort

 

Jekyll Island Club Resort

 

Just got back from an overnight trip to the Jekyll Island Club Resort.  It’s where one goes to feel a part of the upper part of the upper crust, in an overnight dream of wealth and power.

 

It’s also a microcosm of Georgia’s history and a goodly part of American history.  Really? My cautious readers may ask.  One little island of seven miles long by a mile and a half wide does all that?

 

Yes.  Georgia is one of the original thirteen colonies, as I’m sure you are aware.  General Oglethorpe was the first English Governor of Georgia and named the island (one of the four Golden Isles on the Georgia coast) after his friend, an English politician, Sir Joseph Jekyll, who also, by the way, provided Oglethorpe with £600 to develop the island.

 

We could talk forever about the Spanish and French and English and native American tribes, all fighting and compromising over this island.

 

But, let’s slam forward, but just a bit. In 1792, a Frenchman who fled from the French Revolution, Christophe DuBignon, purchased the island and started a cotton plantation.  Another leap in time.  DuBignon’s heir, sold the island to a group of New York industrialists for $125,000 (about $3.5 million today) and they established a hunting club. You’d recognize many of the names.  Morgan (JP Morgan), Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Pulitzer, just to name a few.  It was said that these and other members represented one sixth of the world’s wealth.  And today we think it’s something new for the few to hold most of the wealth.

 

This exclusive club, perhaps the most exclusive in the world at that time, set up a private island resort like no other and constantly added amenities.  The USGA built a wonderful golf course, Great Dunes, where new clubs (steel shaft) and balls (lighter) where first tested, and changed the face of the game.

 

Is it any wonder that after the financial crash of 1907 (when stock prices dropped about 50%!) the movers and shakers met here in 1910 to rough out the establishment of the Federal Reserve System that we have today.  Once again, history is repeated, namely in the Great Depression and more recently in the 1990s, when the tech bubble popped.

Members often came by yacht for visits, some of the ships were even too large to dock. Privately invited guests were permitted only a two-week stay in the privately owned “cottages.”  In this case, cottage meant a huge mansion, with names such as Sans Souci, Cherokee, and Crane whose rooms are now part of the hotel.  Rooms in both the main club and cottages run about $300 a night, more or less, and do not include meals or parking, or taxes.

This rich man’s bit of heaven lasted from 1886 until 1942, when owners were required to move due to the chance of German submarines in the coastal waters. By the end of the war, it was no longer economically viable to maintain it as a private resort.

 

The Jekyll Island Club Resort is now a part of the collection of Historic Hotels of America.

 

Ok, enough history.  Time to cut to the chase, skin the cat, ante up or fold. Is a visit worth it?  For us it was. The sheer beauty of the architecture, inside and out, the extravagant elegance of the Club and its accommodations, along with the magnificent grounds, has an unmatched charm for this part of the world.  Service is first class in every respect.

The famous hall of mirrors.

Rare 19th century Japanese Tsutsugaki-Zome difficult indigo art

There’s far more to see and do than hang out in the Club.  Bicycles are available for rent, with 3 hours of bike trails, lots of beautiful seashore for walking, cuisine that stretches from the elegant to the casual, gift shops galore and historical sites aplenty.

 

And then I found the small, cozy, dark wood paneled bar in the Club. Lucky for us, there were six stools, two of which were empty.

 

Sunday through Thursday, 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.

 

There’s something about a small group in an elegant bar that pulls people together and brings out interesting conversation.  The three couples were from different parts of the country, with different backgrounds and different professions, and yet stories and humor and travel adventures sparkled brightly.

 

Bear in mind, all of us were retired, well dressed and showing our age.

 

“You’ve got a cute wife.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what she tells me.” 

 

“Covid about killed me.”

 

“How long did it last?”

 

“Oh, not me.  But covid damn near killed by business.”

 

“What business?”

 

“Travel agency.”

 

The conversation morphed into one of the most important subjects of the day, colleges and high schools and the balance between academics and athletics, plumbing the philosophical depths in avid discussion.  Of course that moved on to European travel and then on to one bright subject after another.

 

And so it went, until the weary barkeep passed out the bills and we slinked off in different directions to our pricy beds.

 

For me, it’s the people you meet that make the trip, whether it’s a cruise or a resort, or a night at a cozy bar.

 

But, yes, the Jekyll Island Club Resort, was a night of feeling like the rich and powerful.  Worth the money to feel that way for a while, especially in a gorgeous, historic setting that brings out turn of the 20^th century lavishness and shines new light on problems and a society that shares many problems and solutions that mirror our own.