Jekyll Island Club Pool

by Marty Fancy

Title

Jekyll Island Club Pool

Artist

Marty Fancy

Medium

Photograph

Description

The swimming pool at Jekyll Island Club Hotel.

The Jekyll Island Club was a private club located on Jekyll Island, on the Georgia coastline. It was founded in 1886 when members of an incorporated hunting and recreational club purchased the island for $125,000 from John Eugune du Bignon. The original design of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, with its easily identifiable turret, was completed in January 1888. The club thrived through the early 20th century with an exclusive limited membership consisting of many of the world's wealthiest families at the time, most notably the Morgans, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts. The club lasted 54 years, closing at the end of the 1942 season due to complications from World War II. In 1947, after 5 years of funding a staff to upkeep the lawn and cottages, the island was purchased from the club's remaining members for $675,000 during condemnation proceedings by the state of Georgia.

The State tried operating the club as a resort for some time, but this was not financially successful and the entire complex was closed by 1971. The complex was designated a historic landmark in 1978. It was restored and reopened as a luxury resort hotel in 1985.

Jekyll Island Club Hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Several nationally important events took place on Jekyll Island during the Club era, including the first transcontinental telephone call made by Theodore N. Vail, president of AT&T, to Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas A. Watson and President Woodrow Wilson in 1915; and the development of the Aldrich Vreeland Act for the National Monetary Commission in 1908.

The club was turned into a public resort by the state, but closed by 1971, a financial failure. It was made a historic landmark in 1978 and restored and reopened as the Radisson Jekyll Island Club Hotel in 1985. Radisson ceased managing the hotel some years later, and it currently operates as the Jekyll Island Club Hotel.

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July 24th, 2014

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