Can Sapelo Be Saved?
Once upon a time, if you were any kind of 20th-century capitalist worth the weight of your ill-gotten gains, you wintered on an island off the Georgia coast.
Bankers, oil magnates, and other industry titans regularly yachted down from their Northern estates to escape the sleet and snow, carving out luxurious retreats among moss-swathed oaks along pristine shorelines. Some bought up the sites of ruined plantations to repurpose as their playgrounds; others tried to revive agricultural endeavors with the Gullah Geechee oystering communities that had been minding their own business for generations.
The Rockefellers and Vanderbilts built a turreted castle clubhouse on Jekyll Island, just a shallow hop away from the Carnegies’ sumptuous digs on Cumberland.
After their stupendous manor in Savannah burnt to the ground in the 1920s, the wealthy Torrey family from Detroit decamped to a glorious new refuge on Ossabaw.
Auto mogul Howard Coffin developed opulent properties on Sapelo, St. Simons and Sea Island, eventually passing on the Sapelo manse to tobacco scion R.J. Reynolds Jr. in 1934.
As the spoils of the Gilded Age wilted, however, keeping up with their fellow robber barons proved poor economic policy. The busy winter yacht traffic slowed and many of these Lowcountry winter wonderlands fell into disrepair or opened to the public as hotels—*gasps and clutches art deco pearls*— while others came under the auspices of caretaking non-profits.
Most of the islands remain bridgeless, accessible only by boat, but exploration of their palatial pasts is not impossible.
You still have to be a pretty big baller to spend a weekend at Cumberland’s Greyfield Inn or the Lodge on Little St. Simons, though camping nearby is an option, both legally and surreptitiously. (Don’t we all know locals who grew up partying on Wassaw?)
After turning her parents’ estate into a freethinking artist colony in the 1970s *more gasps from the bluebloods!*, Eleanor “Sandy” Torrey-West famously gifted her island to the state of Georgia to protect it from greedy developers. The Ossabaw Island Foundation hosts a wonderful variety of educational workshops throughout the seasons. (You don’t have to leave the mainland to attend TOIF’s annual Night in Savannah on Thursday, January 18 at Armstrong Center; the free lecture by legendary local historian Dr. Paul Pressly will also be livestreamed.)
Sapelo Island, save the tiny historic Gullah Geechee enclave of Hogg Hummock, is also owned by the state. After Mr. Reynolds’ death in 1964 (of emphysema, shocker), Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources acquired 97% of the land, lending out parts of the marsh to the University of Georgia for marine research and managing the rest as a state park.
Which is how this weirdo, who is decidedly not a tycoon of anything but a dog hair covered sofa, recently found herself gallivanting around the high-ceilinged living room of the Reynolds Mansion in her pajamas.
We’d arrived by the twice-daily ferry and slept in Mrs. Reynolds’ old bedroom off the solarium, the early morning sunlight splaying in rays from beveled glass. After rinsing my toothbrush under the squeaky fish-shaped sink fixture and admiring the ashtray next to the toilet, I decided upon a pre-breakfast tour of my home for the next two days.
Exotic birds peered out from the walls, painted by revered Italian-born muralist Athos Menaboni, who spent months in residence with Reynolds creating unique indoor spaces, including a motley pirate crew keeping eternal watch over the downstairs game area and a zoo of mesmerizing caged animals and life-sized freaks in the Circus Room on the third floor, complete with striped tent and themed furniture.
I crept through the Great Room to fix a cup of tea in the butler’s pantry, pushing through heavy wooden doors carved with geometric patterns. Passing the fireplace big enough to stand in, I settled into the oval-shaped library, heady with the aroma of shelves and shelves of old books. Late-stage capitalism villainy be damned, I could get used to this! I thought as I kicked off my slippers and perused a coffee table book of Menaboni’s nature plates.
Available for reservations for groups of 16 to 25, the mansion is often rented out for conferences and weddings, or perhaps a gathering of dear friends looking for an adventure. Traditional Lowcountry meals are included in the fees and cooked by Sapelo native Chef Mary, who might come out from the massive kitchen to laugh bemusedly at a bunch of plebians ogling the fancy chandeliers.
While it certainly defies the boundaries of glamping, this is definitely not a hotel. A uniformed site manager pops in and out (keep that bathrobe closed, ma’am!) to ensure everyone stays on their best behavior and out of delicate areas. Rules and requests are prominently posted, a reminder that only careful stewardship will ensure the mansion’s future as an accessible, if remote, public space. I’m sure it costs a pretty taxpayer penny just to keep the lights on and the roof from leaking, though probably not more than Mrs. Reynolds’ fur coat collection.
Personally, I reveled in the moldering Mrs. Havisham vibes, the patches of peeling paint, the leather buffer of the bowling alley pummeled practically to dust. The experience was more like staying in a slightly underfunded museum, a bittersweet testament to the long, slow unraveling of an unsustainable system of exploitation of resources and labor that will catch up with us sooner than later.
After a while, cosplaying the housewife of a rich fat cat lost (some of) its charm. Our group headed out through the gargantuan oaks on bicycles provided by the state to the historic candy-striped lighthouse, the second-oldest in the country made of brick. A nature trail lined with saw palmettos and woods burbling with wood storks, egrets, and cormorants gently spit us out at sugar-white Nanny Goat Beach, where we encountered the island’s true value in its unspoiled ecology and vast shoreline empty of other people, the ultimate privilege in this crowded world.
Our discussion turned to the plight of Sapelo’s real residents, the remaining descendants of the West Africans enslaved here in the 1700s who have mightily preserved their culture and language to become globally recognized as part of the Gullah-Geechee Nation. (In preparation, our group read Cornelia Walker Bailey’s stunning, stalwart autobiography God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man as well the hideous account of local corruption and racism of law enforcement in Praying for Sheetrock by Melissa Fay Greene.)
Once spread out in communities over the island, a few dozen families continue to tend their ancestral properties in Hogg Hummock, which ostensibly receives services under the auspices of McIntosh County but still has no trash pick-up, freshwater mitigation, or fire department.
Instead of working to preserve this singular, exceptional community, county commissioners have done practically everything to squeeze them out, most recently with shady new zoning ordinances that would jack property taxes beyond affordability and invite today’s version of carpetbagging developers to double the size of existing properties.
Citizens have filed a court appeal as well as launched a petition to repeal the zoning changes; their efforts have been countered by a request to dismiss by the McIntosh County Commission. A hearing for the county’s motion is set for Feb. 20, which might warrant a road trip to Darien. (Beware of speed traps; that nasty sheriff’s legacy trolls that stretch of I-95.)
In the meantime, information on how to financially and administratively support the effort to Keep Sapelo Geechee can be found here, including how to download and sign the petition. For the most up-to-date developments on Sapelo’s future, follow Mary Landers’ comprehensive coverage in The Current.
I admit it felt awkward to carouse through a dead millionaire's halls with this salient issue at hand, and I wondered whether our stay at the Reynolds Mansion would help to preserve Sapelo’s history and future.
From a Georgia taxpayer perspective, the state is the number one employer on the island and provides ferry service for residents with jobs and educational opportunities on the mainland, often improving roads and infrastructure where the county does not. The mansion also serves as a destination point that helps to promote SICARS, the local organization that oversees Hogg Hummock’s tour guides and gift shop.
On the other costume-jeweled hand, propping up the old capitalistic narrative of crusty titans who manipulated the working classes and despoiled the planet isn’t a great look, even if you’re just pretending.
This and other conflicts remained unresolved in me as I basked in the library’s woodsy warmth and belted out karaoke in the Circus Room. How rich do you have to be to own history? Is capitalism actually dying or just morphing into space with Bezos and Musk? With more than enough resources to go around, will we ever learn how to share?
All I know is that as we bid good-bye to the Reynolds mansion and Sapelo Island’s glorious beauty and vulnerable heritage, the privilege was all mine.
This house has many rooms there’s one for you ~ JLL
Save Sapelo and keep the Gullah Geechee culture intact to share with generations to come.
This is a powerful story. I'd love to pick your brain about it over a drink or three.