Jekyll Island Club
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Jekyll Island Club
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| Location | Jekyll Island, Georgia |
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| Coordinates | 31°3′38″N 81°25′19″W / 31.06056°N 81.42194°WCoordinates: 31°3′38″N 81°25′19″W / 31.06056°N 81.42194°W |
| Built | 1886 |
| Architect | Multiple |
| Architectural style | Queen Anne |
| NRHP Reference # | 72000385 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | January 20, 1972 |
| Designated NHLD | June 2, 1978 |
The Jekyll Island Club was a private club on Jekyll Island, on Georgia's Atlantic coast. It was founded in 1886 when members of an incorporated hunting and recreational club purchased the island for $125,000 from John Eugene du Bignon. The original design of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, with its signature turret, was completed in January 1888. The club thrived through the early 20th century; its members came from many of the world's wealthiest families, most notably the Morgans, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts. The club closed at the end of the 1942 season due to complications from World War II. In 1947, after five years of funding a staff to keep up 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, 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. Today, Jekyll Island Club Hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
At the end of the plantation era of Jekyll Island, Newton Finney, suggested to Dubignon, his brother-in-law, that they might acquire the island and then sell it to Northern businessmen as a winter resort. A New York backer helped with the purchase of the entire island. By 1885, Dubignon was the sole owner of Jekyll.
In 1885, Finney and a New York associate, Oliver K. King, gathered a group of men and petitioned the Glynn county courts, becoming incorporated as the “Jekyl Island Club” on December 9, 1885. They agreed to sell 100 shares of the Jekyll Island Club stock to 50 people at $600 a share.
Finney had no difficulty selling the shares. Six of the first seven shares went to the men who signed the charter petition: Finney, Dubignon, King, Richard L. Ogden, William B. D'Wolf, and Charles L. Schlatter. In all, Finney was able to find 53 people to join the Club, including such famous names as Henry Hyde, Marshall Field, John Pierpont Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, and William K. Vanderbilt.
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