Dozen Distinctive Destinations
Jekyll Island, GA
Year Listed: 2003
Six miles off Georgia's coast, midway between Savannah and Jacksonville, Jekyll Island is a rare treasure, blending natural beauty with a rich heritage. Purchased by some of America's wealthiest industrialists for $125,000 in 1886, the island became a private hunting resort prized for its splendid isolation. Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and Goodyears soon constructed a grand clubhouse and mansion-sized "cottages," most of which have been restored. The Great Depression and World War II brought the resort's glory days to an end, however, and in 1947 the island was sold to the state of Georgia.
Today the area surrounding the Jekyll Island Club is known as "Millionaires' Village." Visitors enjoy self-guided walking tours or horse-drawn carriage rides around the 240-acre site. The rambling clubhouse is a romantic Victorian hotel, one of the National Trust's Historic Hotels of America. Thanks to strict preservation and zoning ordinances, Jekyll has avoided overdevelopment and boasts miles of unspoiled beaches, bicycling and walking paths, traces of early Native American inhabitants and the ruins of a former cotton plantation. Spanish explorers referred to Jekyll and surrounding islands as "the Golden Isles." Five centuries later, Jekyll Island still glitters.
