By MARY JO DILONARDO
Photography by BRIAN AUSTIN LEE

Brodie is the best dog. He’s just maybe not the best beach dog. At home, our much-loved and slightly manic border collie is mostly a couch potato, making only an occasional half-effort to growl at the Amazon truck or kids in the cul de sac. He’s a sweetheart, really. 

He’s never—would never—hurt a thing. But sometimes, when he’s out of the house, he morphs into an anxious, barking, twirling mess. It can be hard to take him places. Brodie has a whole list of things that make him nervous or overly excited (No. 1 being other dogs). Leash walking, even in the quiet and friendly surroundings of our neighborhood, can be intense. So it was with some serious apprehension that we loaded up the car, buckled Bro into the back seat, and headed to Jekyll Island. Unlike a lot of places, dogs aren’t simply tolerated on Jekyll Island. They’re encouraged to visit. Nearly every hotel, and many private rentals, allow pets. (There’s a good chance that your hotel has dog treats stashed behind the front desk.) Dogs are welcome to hang out at restaurants with outdoor patios. The beaches are practically made for our furry family members.

That said, when we visited in spring, the island was nowhere close to being overrun with canines. We saw dogs here and there exploring the beach, walking the trails, or lounging at restaurants. All of them were well-behaved, notwithstanding a stray bark or occasional whine. That, of course, usually came from Brodie.

We stayed at a hotel toward the south end of the island in a first-floor room with a small patio. The room offered easy access to the grounds and no stairs or elevator rides, which can be challenging or downright scary to even the coolest of dogs.

The area around the hotel was lush. Tumbleweeds of Spanish moss that had drifted from the towering oaks aroused Brodie’s interest. There were plenty of places where he could privately do his doggy business, too, and several well-placed bag dispensers and trash cans to dispose of said business. Unlike in the suburbs, there weren’t full bags left on sidewalks or petrified deposits that someone chose to ignore, either.

On the Beach

Getting to the beach was a bit of a challenge. A flight of wooden stairs climbed to a long, winding boardwalk. A set of steep steps led down to the sand. Brodie is nearly 10 years old and had knee surgery a few months ago, so we encouraged him to take the stairs slowly. If your dog isn’t terribly young or graceful, call around before you book. Ask about beaches with ADA access. Some hotels offer ramps to the beach that make the trip much easier for older, less nimble dogs.

Jekyll’s wide, flat beaches are ideal for dog walking, offering plenty of room to share the sand with other pups, which is good if your pup isn’t particularly sociable. And just about all of Jekyll’s beaches are open to dogs. A small stretch of beach just south of South Dunes Picnic Area is the only spot on the island that’s off-limits, to protect wildlife in the area.

To capitalize on quiet time and avoid run-ins with overly friendly pups, we ventured to the beach early each morning, when it was less crowded (and cooler—also good for our furry buds). Brodie went bonkers sniffing the unfamiliar odors. We tried getting him to wade into the waves but Brodie, being Bro, wasn’t a fan of the whole back-and-forth thing with the surf. Still, he liked the sea breeze, which ruffled his ears and gave him some pretty impressive beach hair.

Brodie was fascinated with jellyfish, horseshoe crabs, and sand dollars. But he wasn’t exactly sure if they were something to sniff, nibble, or roll around in. We caught him, on more than one occasion, trying to do all three. At one point, even as we kept him on the leash, he deftly dropped to his side and rolled gloriously in a batch of seaweed. He was quite pleased with himself.

The island, all pup parents should note, has a strict leash policy. No matter where you are, your dog must be on a leash, and that leash can be no more than 16 feet long. As the parents of a reactive dog, we were relieved not to have loose, unpredictable pups bounding up to us, hoping to make a new friend.

Being prepared on a beach walk is paramount. In addition to a leash, make sure to pack all your doggo supplies. A travel bowl or water bottle is critical.  Hook it on your belt loop or toss it in your backpack. (And bring enough refreshments for the humans, too.) The island doesn’t have a pet store, though you can find things like collars, bowls, and treats in a few places. 

In the Room

Hotels will hit you with either a nightly or a per-stay fee for pets. The charge covers a post-stay deep clean, for all that dog hair and dog-treat crumbs you might leave behind. Different hotels have different policies for keeping dogs in the room. Some require, if you’re away, that dogs be put in a crate. Others don’t allow a dog to stay unaccompanied in the room at all. Ask before you book.

Because hotels aren’t always the quietest of places, Brodie was instantly aware of every closing door, every conversation in the hallway, and any other dogs complaining about their accommodations. Anytime we went out without Brodie, we crated him and gave him a Kong filled with peanut butter. And we left on the TV, with the sound on, to keep out stray noises. (Brodie took in a few episodes of “Charmed” and at least one action-packed Marvel movie.)

When we returned, he was, as always, overjoyed to see us. He was even more excited about the mini tub of peanut butter that we pocketed from the breakfast bar.

I imagine it’s a lot of fun to travel with dogs that love everything and everyone. But when you’re dealing with a not-so-perfect pooch, like our best boy Brodie, it takes a little planning, a lot of deep breaths, and a near-ideal destination to make it work. Jekyll Island was that place for us.

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BY RICHARD L. ELDREDGE

In early October, a few months before thousands of treasure hunters make their annual descent on Jekyll Island, glassblowing artists Mark and Marcus Ellinger begin firing up their oven in Stanwood, Washington. For the past 22 years, Mark, now joined in his Glass Quest studio by his son Marcus, has created the colorful hand-blown glass globes that serve as much-coveted prizes in the island’s winter scavenger hunt known as Island Treasures.

The popular off season event, held in January and February, is inspired by the work of East Coast fishermen, who in the early 1900s began using colorful hollow glass floats to mark their nets. By the 1950s, beachcombers were scouring the sand for globes that had broken loose. In 2002, the daily hunt known as Island Treasures (now formally led by the Jekyll Island Authority) was launched. Visitors and locals roam Beach Village, the Historic District, beaches, parks, and established paths throughout the island in search of clear plastic globes— during the hunt, they’re necessarily plastic—that are traded in for unique pieces of Ellinger glass art.

Each morning during their busy season, the Ellingers work nonstop for eight hours creating the globes. “You only get about 30 seconds to work with the glass,” explains Marcus. “We start with clear glass and then add the colors, the background colors, create a texture, slowly work a bubble into it, slowly break them off, and add the official Jekyll Island stamp on the bottom.”

Adds Mark: “This is not a craft you can set down, think about, and come back to. Once you start a piece you have to finish it immediately, all while withstanding a lot of heat.” On a busy day in the studio, the duo can crank out a singular glass globe every 10 minutes. But nothing is certain until the oven is opened the next day.

“You don’t know what it’s going to look like exactly until you take it out,” says Mark. “That’s the joy of it. It’s like Christmas morning every day.”

The Ellingers are creating joy far and wide on Jekyll Island each January and February: In 2024, around 200,000 people visited during the hunt. 

“The event definitely has a cult following,” says Alexa Hawkins, the JIA’s senior director of marketing and communications. “And that’s thanks in no small part to the beautiful pieces the Ellingers create for us.”

Only 250 plastic globes are hidden around the island each winter. But the Ellingers supply the island with 1,700 of their glass works of art. The floats are sold year- round at the Guest Information Center, just outside the entrance gates to the island on the Causeway, and at the new 31•81 shop in the Historic District.

Occasionally, the Ellingers get a surprise visit from Island Treasures superfans in their Washington glass studios. “It’s humbling for us to meet them and hear they enjoy what we’ve created,” says Marcus. “They feel a connection to us because they own a piece of our art. In turn, that helps fuel the fire for us as artists.”

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By JACINTA HOWARD

If walls could talk, Jekyll Island’s historic buildings would share some fascinating tales. Stables that once housed magnificent horses belonging to America’s wealthiest families are now a museum. A power plant is now home to rehabilitating sea turtles. Lifeguard dorms and infirmaries have been thoughtfully preserved and adapted to new uses, reflecting the island’s rich history and innovative spirit. Here’s a look:

Mosaic, Jekyll Island Museum

In 1897, some of America’s wealthiest individuals kept their horses at the former Jekyll Island Club Stables while they wintered on the island. The building has seen a load of changes since then. It served as a garage. In the early part of the State Era (when the state of Georgia bought the island in 1947), it was a building supply store. In the 1980s, it became home to the first island museum, although it retained some of its original purpose; then, and for many years after, part of the building served as a barn for horses used on carriage tours. “The reuse of late 19th-century stables into a museum doesn’t typically seem to gel,” Taylor Davis, the historic preservationist for the Jekyll Island Authority admits, laughing. “We had a paddock on the back part, which, when I first started here, was still a paddock for horses.” By 2019, the museum reopened as it is now. The paddock is now an outdoor classroom and event space. Funded by several organizations, including the Jekyll Island Foundation, the museum’s gallery space features artifacts spanning from the Guale Indians to the Gilded Age and beyond.

Georgia Sea Turtle Center

In the early 1900s, what is now the Georgia Sea Turtle Center was a power plant where electricity was generated for the Jekyll Island Club. Once power became available from more reliable sources on the mainland, the building went through several transitions, from a Christmas shop to a garage of sorts. “There were a couple of vintage cars parked in there I remember from my childhood,” Davis recalls. In 2007, the building became the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, where sick and injured turtles are rehabilitated. “It’s essentially a big brick shell of a building that we rehabbed into an interpreted space, retail area, and turtle hospital,” Davis says. “There’s a place for turtle treatment in the northern wing, where they have an operating room with a viewing window. This window, originally an exterior door, is now like the old hospital galleries for watching operations, but for sea turtles.”

The JIA Annex

A three-story structure built in the 1890s, the Jekyll Island Authority Annex building originally housed servants of the Jekyll Island Club. Davis describes the building as “folk Victorian with Queen Anne elements” that complemented the Club. From the 1970s to the ’90s, a college theatre group produced plays at the island’s amphitheater, and the building housed the actors. During summers, lifeguards stayed there. “So, it has continually served as a dormitory,” Davis adds. “However, today, nobody spends the night there; it houses our offices, keeping the structure relevant and functional.” The building has undergone a careful restoration and looks now, from the outside, much as it did in the 1890s, with the exception of the air conditioning units. “Paint analysis identified the original colors and 28 wooden windows were restored,” Davis says, “with some sashes replaced to match the original material.” These days, the building is home to several offices for the JIA, the state organization that oversees the conservation and development of the island.

31•81, A Jekyll Island Lifestyle Shop

Built in 1890, this structure, originally known as Furness Cottage, faced the river. The shingled Queen Anne-style building was purchased by Joseph Pulitzer, who moved it slightly away from the river and built a massive brick cottage on the open lot. Later, the Albright family acquired the original Furness Cottage, moved it again, and in 1930, the Goodyear family relocated it to its current position, transforming it into the Club’s infirmary, staffed by doctors from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The building has served various other roles over the years. It was once a home for the Jekyll Island Authority’s staff and later became a bookstore until around 2016. Today, it’s been revitalized as the 31•81 Lifestyle Shop. “It’s amazing to see this incredible store breathe new life into the structure,” Davis says. “This transformation represents the [building’s] highest and best use, maintaining its historical charm while serving a modern purpose.”

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Georgia State Representative Al Williams of Midway, who has served in the Georgia General Assembly since 2003, first visited Jekyll Island as a boy in the late 1950s when one of his friends asked him to go on a day trip. The friend’s mother, a schoolteacher, opened the door to a new world for him that day. “I felt an instant connection to the island,” he says. “It was magical, especially the oak trees draped in Spanish moss.”

At the time, Jekyll was segregated. “Black visitors had to turn right at the entrance,” he recalls. A beach at the island’s south end was designated for blacks, and the Dolphin Club and Motor Hotel was their only lodging. Years later, in the 1970s and 1980s, Williams and his family often vacationed at Jekyll, which was by then fully integrated.

Williams still enjoys spending time on the island. And as a member of two of the most powerful house committees in the assembly— appropriations and economic development & tourism—he helps secure Jekyll’s future by enacting legislation that protects the environment, limits development, and funds revitalization projects.

He has long led the charge for preserving the natural beauty of Jekyll, noting that it has avoided the indiscriminate construction that has spoiled many other coastal resorts. He’s also adamant that the island remains a vacation spot for people of all income levels and from all walks of life. “Jekyll is for everyone,” he says. “There’s no place like it in the world.”

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By JESSICA WHITTINGSLOW
Photography by BRIAN AUSTIN LEE

Beautiful Butterflies

If you yearn for autumnal hues of orange and yellow, catch migratory butterflies as they cruise through Jekyll on their journey south. Get a glimpse of the stunning chartreuse cloudless sulphur, the spotted bright orange Gulf fritillary, and their close lookalikes, striped monarchs. These spectacular species seek respite on the island’s south end this time of year before proceeding on their voyage.

Gorgeous Spartina

There are countless reasons why the islands off the coast of Georgia are called The Golden Isles. One that perhaps makes the most sense: the seasonal hue of Spartina alterniflora, or marsh grass. The sun accentuates the brilliant color of the grass, which shines in streams of woven gold in salty waterways. And Spartina is useful, too. Many species depend on this plant, including Crassostrea virginica, the iconic American oyster.

Magnificent Muhly

A sure sign of fall, the local muhly grass puts on a remarkable performance, with the plant’s purple-pink flowers erupting all over Jekyll. Resembling the plume of a posh hat, you’ll find clusters of this sweet grass in abundance as you make your way around the island.

Colorful Coquina

Hunt for treasure while you explore Jekyll’s beaches. Discover stray driftwood, various vibrant shells, and the occasional opaque piece of tumbled sea glass. As you wander, watch for brilliantly colorful coquina shells. These dainty, hinged mollusks come in an array of yellows, oranges, beiges, blues, and pinks that could inspire a sunset.

The Perfect Sunset

There’s nothing quite like a sunset, and Jekyll Island offers some of the best in the South. The sun’s golden scarlet glow, reflected off ocean or marsh, sparks a rippling reflection as it slowly sinks below the horizon. Just when you think the show is over, hues of coral and lavender color the sky for one last hurrah.

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BY FRAN WORRALL

Almost every visitor to Jekyll Island discovers Faith Chapel, the church that served the prominent families of the Jekyll Island Club. But the first church attended by Club members was Union Chapel, a tiny non-denominational house of worship located on the north end of the Club compound. Built in 1898, the modest structure featured board-and-batten siding, a cypress shingle roof, nondescript glass windows, and a bell tower. Rustic pews seated approximately 50 people.

According to Andrea Marroquin, curator of Mosaic, Jekyll Island Museum, socialite Charlotte Maurice, wife of Jekyll Island Club founding member Charles Stewart Maurice, spearheaded the effort to bring in various clergymen to preach at Union Chapel on Sundays. “Some were local ministers, others prominent clergy from up north,” she says. Typical services included bible readings, hymns, a sermon, an offering, and, occasionally, communion.

Within six years, an influx of new Club members rendered Union Chapel too small. Faith Chapel was built in 1904, and Union Chapel was moved to an area adjacent to what was called the Quarters, housing built in the 1890s for Jekyll’s Black employees. “Church was an integral part of the community of about 25 families who lived and worked on the island year round,” Marroquin says. Weekly Sunday school classes were typically taught by members of the congregation, while church services, held on Sunday afternoons and evenings, were often conducted by ministers from the mainland. Prayer meetings were held on Tuesday nights.

Although the relocated chapel was intended for use by the Black community, visitors were common. “Club members and the island’s white employees enjoyed listening to the music, and some Club members were known to attend services at both Union Chapel and Faith Chapel,” Marroquin says.

Union Chapel was likely razed in the early 1960s at the same time as the island’s Black employee housing, but recollections of the small chapel that once served the community so well live on in archival images and oral histories.

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BY JOSH GREENE

Today, all that remains of a crucial part of Jekyll Island’s past are a few timeworn concrete piers, some tabby walls, and an old capstan winch, a table-sized tool with ropes used for pulling fanciful boats and launches from the water. These ruins were once part of a transportation hub as critical to Jekyll Island as the Causeway and airport are today.

The Jekyll Island Club Boat House that stood in what today is Riverview Park—situated just south of the Historic District, near the three-way stop where Stable Road meets Riverview Drive—once housed the boats of Jekyll’s well-heeled citizenry. These vessels were their lifeline to mainland Georgia throughout the Club Era (1886-1942), long before the Causeway bridge was built. A more recent addition to the park—a sturdy historical marker from the 1950s pays homage to the boat house’s significance.

For some Club members and their guests, arriving at the island meant anchoring their private yachts in Jekyll Creek’s deep channel and taking smaller vessels to shore. Others traveled by plush private railcars to the bustling port of Brunswick. From there, ferry boat captains transported guests to and from Jekyll aboard one of several Club-owned steam vessels. Barges towed behind the ferries carried baggage, supplies, and even livestock. The first automobile on island arrived by barge in 1900.

The first Club-owned steam vessel to Jekyll was the circa-1887 Howland, named for Club president Judge Henry Elias Howland. Its replacement, the 84-foot Jekyl Island (that’s how the word often was spelled at the time), was stored in the boat house during the summer. Several smaller boats the Hattie, the Kitty, and the Sylvia among them were used in the summer offseason and stored in the boat house through winter.

Andrea Marroquin, curator of Mosaic, Jekyll Island Museum, says the boat house was strategically placed south of what is now the Historic District so as not to block the water vistas treasured by the likes of Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Pulitzers. The boat house’s creek-side positioning may have helped buffer it from storms, too, though a wharf-wrecking hurricane of 1898 proved the area wasn’t immune.

The advent of the Jekyll Creek Bridge in the 1950s made the island accessible by car, and the custom of arriving by water faded like the Club itself (though ferry service did continue during the island’s early days as a state park). What remains undocumented is when the boat house was built and when it either crumbled or was demolished. “We simply know that it was standing by 1916, based on [archival] photos,” Marroquin says.

The location of the boat house isn’t quite as tucked away as it once was. But that’s not all bad. A wayside panel positioned there helps today’s Jekyll explorers interpret the ruins that remain. “It used to be a bit more off the beaten path,” says Marroquin, “but now that Riverview Park is there, with parking, pathways, and picnic tables, it’s easier for guests to discover.”

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By TONY REHAGEN
Illustrations by Patrik Svensson

Jekyll Island welcomes all comers. This coastal paradise serves as a season-long layover for some and a quick stop for others. It’s a popular destination for weary travelers looking for a change in environment, a place to find food, relaxation, and a chance to reset to the natural rhythms of life.

And we’re not just talking about snowbirds, retirees, and tourists.

No matter the time of year, humans share Jekyll Island’s bounty and beauty with a vast menagerie of migrating animals, drawn to the island’s unique patchwork of ecosystems. Some come as entire
populations. Others arrive alone. They come in search of food or a place to hibernate. They come to escape extreme weather. Some come to breed or lay their eggs, ensuring the future of their species.

Climate, geography, and topography all play parts in Jekyll’s role as a migratory hot spot for all sorts of animals, from manatees to frogs to peregrine falcons to dragonflies. But the island also stands out because of the hospitality that humans show visiting wildlife. Other places mount sincere efforts to keep animals and habitats safe. On Jekyll Island, protecting wildlife and the land is the law.

Only one-third of the island’s acreage, by state law, is allowed to be developed. The rest is pre-served for both permanent residents and those just passing through. A key example of this human-animal harmony on Jekyll: The upcoming upgrades to the island’s golf courses include scrapping nine existing holes. Most of that land will be restored to maritime grasslands and wetlands that will serve
as a wildlife corridor.

“Whether they come from a short distance or a long distance, these species put themselves in a lot of peril and tax themselves energy-wise to get here,” says Joseph Colbert, the Jekyll Island Authority’s wildlife biologist. “There is a primal urge and drive to achieving this migration.”

Shorebirds and Seabirds

Whenever migration is mentioned, birds are the first species to come to mind. An easily recognizable landmark on the north-south Atlantic Flyway, Jekyll is a landing pad for hundreds of species coming from as far away as South America. Some are just passing through on their way home or to warmer climes; others stay all winter to enjoy the warmth, ample food supply, and diverse canopy for cover. The island’s wetlands and deep ponds are the perfect place for wading birds to nest.

It should come as no surprise that the clean and relatively unpopulated Jekyll beaches are a haven for migrating shorebirds—Wilson’s Plovers, Willets, Black-necked Stilts, Skimmers, Least Terns, and American Oystercatchers, to name some—that arrive in spring and scratch out nests in the dunes for their eggs.

The tidal amplitude (the difference in depth between high tide and low tide) is anywhere from six to nine feet on Jekyll, two to three times that of North Carolina or southern Florida. “That leaves a huge amount of exposed sandbar and mudflats during low tide,” says Tim Keyes, a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “That’s like a grocery store for shorebirds.”

Butterflies

Monarch butterflies are famous for their migration. They are the only butterflies to make a two-way migration because they’re unable to overwinter; they can’t survive winters by slipping into a differ- ent, hibernation-like life stage, as some butterflies do. So they have to move. Their long fall journey south (as far as 3,000 miles), then, can span multiple generations. No individual monarch completes the entire trip.

These regal insects, with their iconic wings of black and orange fringed with bright white dots, make a splashy autumnal appearance on Jekyll. But their numbers are relatively puny compared to that of another orange-and-black winged Lepidoptera, the true royalty of the island’s butterfly migration, the Gulf fritillaries.

Drawn to the island’s flora, particularly the plentiful purple passionflowers, the Gulf fritillaries come to feed and leave their larvae, which will grow into caterpillars on the host plant. And they come in droves. While you might see 300 monarchs blow through in a day, 7,000 to 9,000 Gulf fritillaries may come and go in that timespan. Colbert has witnessed up to 42,000 on a particularly windy day.

With those kinds of numbers, Daniel Quinn, the natural resources manager for the Jekyll Island Authority, says it’s a good thing that the new wildlife corridor near the golf course will be packed with plants for these important pollinators. 

Sea Turtles

Sea turtles are so well-known as migrators to Jekyll that they’ve essentially become the island’s mascot. By now, most human residents and visitors know that between May and the end of August, bales of female loggerheads come ashore at night, dig a nest in the sand, and lay their eggs. It’s not always on the exact same spot on the beach where they were born, a phenomenon experts call “site fidelity.” Some nest across multiple states.

Still, getting here is a wonder of nature. While fliers have a clear overhead view and terrestrial wayfarers literally can feel the weather, vegetation, and general lay of the land, scientists had long been mystified by how these shelled swimmers can paddle thousands of miles through a tossing and sometimes treacherous ocean to find a stretch of shoreline suitable for laying their eggs. Studies have revealed the answer: magnetism.

The Earth has a magnetic field that covers the entire planet, including the ocean. Sea turtles detect changes in this field’s strength and direction in relation to the planet’s surface, these studies have shown, allowing them to navigate back to the welcoming Georgia Coast. 

Manatees and Whales

Turtles, birds, and butterflies might be the star migratory attractions of Jekyll, bringing in tourists to catch their traveling show of natural beauty and splendor. But the island is a complex network of ecosystems that attracts a large supporting cast of animals on the move.

Each spring, manatees venture north from Florida to munch on the island’s buffet of marsh grass. Their aquatic mammalian cousins, the North Atlantic right whales, come down from New England each winter to give birth to their young calves. They’re all part of the grand cycle of life that plays out on Jekyll Island all year, every year.

“We humans really have no way of understanding the single-minded devotion it takes to accomplish some of these migrations,” says Colbert. “It’s amazing to see all these species move in and out over time.”

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BY TESS MALONE

If you’ve stayed at one of Jekyll Island’s hotels in the past, say, 30 years or so, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the work of Dave Curtis. From the historic Jekyll Island Club Resort to the more modern Westin Jekyll Island, Curtis and developer Leon N. Weiner and Associates, Inc. (LNWA) have renovated and built four hotels and two residential developments on the island since the 1980s. They, along with the Jekyll Island Authority and others, have been instrumental in helping to upgrade the look and feel of the entire island. that, when Curtis first set foot on the island in 1985, he didn’t know anything about Jekyll or the hotel industry.

Delaware-based LNWA has long been known for building single-family homes for all income levels, but through the developer grapevine, Curtis and his boss, Leon Weiner, heard of an opportunity to restore the once-grand Jekyll Island Club, formerly a private resort for the nation’s uber-wealthy. Intrigued by the island on their first visit, they drove up to Hilton Head to meet the original developer of the South Carolina vacation destination, Charles Fraser.

He told them that they would never be successful trying to develop a resort on Jekyll. “Leon was just the sort of person who, when you told him he couldn’t do something, became determined that was exactly what he wanted to do,” Curtis says.

Curtis started commuting from Wilmington, Delaware, to Jekyll to woo investors for the future luxury resort. “It was hotter than Hades on Jekyll, and these folks would get off the plane and see this kid in shorts and a golf shirt and be like, ‘Who is this guy?'” says Curtis, who was just 28 at the time. “But the story of this facility that used to be owned by the wealthiest people in the world on this beautiful barrier island was so unique it attracted investors from Boston, Colorado, and North Carolina.”

Curtis and his partners restored the Jekyll Island Club into a 134-room hotel for $20 million (that’s nearly $57 million today) in a meticulous renovation that included recreating plaster friezes and cleaning years of paint off woodwork with toothbrushes. Despite running at only 22 percent occupancy in the first year, the developers persevered, reducing their rates and gradually building a loyal clientele. Soon the property became a sought-after wedding destination, and with more weddings came the need for more hotels.

In the middle of a maritime forest on the south side of the island, LNWA built the 138-room Hampton Inn in 2010. As the island grew, so did the company’s hotels with a 200-room Westin (2015) next to a new convention center.

By 2021, Curtis and LNWA added a 209-room Courtyard and Residence Inn, a dual-branded Marriott property. Curtis, now managing principal of LNWA, also spearheaded two residential developments, raising more than $190 million in original investments. “His love for Jekyll has been evident as he has worked cooperatively and diligently with the Jekyll Island Authority to improve the island over the years,” says former Jekyll Island Authority Executive Director Jones Hooks.

Through the decades, the infrastructure of the island has changed, but the character hasn’t, according to Curtis, who eventually bought a home on St. Simons after spending years in the Golden Isles. “What was there in 1985 were basically 1960s versions of motor inns, and now there’s something for everyone from luxury hotels like the Westin to more affordable properties like Days Inn,” he says. “What hasn’t changed substantially is the feel of Jekyll as more of a retreat than an active vacation destination.”

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BY TESS MALONE

Looking like a sea of coral popping up for fresh air, pickleweed is found all over Jekyll Island’s high salt marshes. It survives and thrives by sending the salt water that it absorbs to its end segments. The salt turns those segments red, and they eventually wither and die. What’s left is a plant with a distinctive salty flavor. That brininess, along with what some consider a cucumber-like appearance, give the succulent its name.

Pickleweed is edible, though experts suggest that, as with most wild edibles, it’s probably wise to go easy on it. Still, Native Americans have used it for centuries for its supposed health benefits. Studies have shown some effectiveness against inflammation, diabetes, asthma, cancer, and other ills.

“Pickleweed is native and a part of the protected coastal salt marsh ecosystem,” says Yank Moore, the director of conservation for the Jekyll Island Authority, “so make sure you follow any local, regional, state laws or guidelines before harvesting wild specimens.”

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