The world is rapidly changing. That change is often accompanied by too much commotion. We search for places where noise is silenced, action slowed and connectivity disconnected. We were able to find such a place at the Greyfield Inn on Cumberland Island, Georgia. The Greyfield Inn is a stately lodging built in 1900 as a summer retreat for Margaret Ricketson, a daughter of Thomas Carnegie, who, along with his brother Andrew dominated the steel industry in its infancy. The Greyfield is a very rare place indeed, at least in the United States. It is like living in a 1900’s home of a very wealthy family with the modern day convenience of electricity. There is no internet or WiFi. It is where a sojourn of 3 or 4 days recharges ones body, mind and spirit. We enjoy feeling like family instead of just another paying customer.
Lost in Time
We were free to roam on our own, to discover the beauty of the 16 miles of virgin, white, sandy beaches and meander along tree-canopied trails on single speed bicycles. Guided tours are available from the back of a Greyfield Inn F150 pickup, complete with bare wooden benches. These tours foster a better understand of what life was like on the island one hundred years ago. Guests might also choose to spend their hours of escape bird watching, swimming, hiking, kayaking, fishing, or just observing the island’s 150+ wild horses, sea turtles, wild hogs and boars. Everything you need to enjoy these activities is provided by the Inn.
The island limits visitors to 300 each day, in part to protect the island’s flora and fauna but also to provide a stronger bond with nature. You probably will not encounter anyone else on your treks. Keep in mind, Cumberland Island is 1/3 larger than the island of Manhattan in NYC! 300 total, wow.
Carnegies
The Carnegies built the Greyfield Inn as one of four Cumberland estates intended as family summer retreats. Margaret’s daughter, Lucy Ferguson, converted one of these estates to an inn during 1962. The Ferguson family (primarily Mary and Mitty) still oversee the Inn’s operation and care, which exudes the romance and luxury of a grand old hotel with the hospitality and charm of a family home. It has been carefully and mindfully restored and maintained. Family portraits still adorn the walls of the Inn and late Victorian antiques still fill the rooms. It is like being in a time warp. On the northern end of the main floor is the library with many first editions and classics owned by the Carnegies. While sitting in a comfortable, aged leather chairs under a large mounted wild turkey (?) one feels transported to a different time and place.
Feels Like Home
The meals and the beverage service at the Greyfield Inn is first class. There are no menus. There is no-one tending bar. In fact you can saunter up to the bar anytime night or day and help yourself to a drink, if that is to your liking. Freshly made ice tea, lemonade or ice cold water is available any time of the day. Go ahead, wander into the kitchen when your thirst demands. You retrieve your picnic basket for lunch each day from the kitchen just before noon. Take your basket with you on your afternoon journeys but remember to bring it back upon your return . We started to feel like this was our home and the Help was always on duty.
Food and Beverage
There are loose schedules for the meals. Breakfast, like all of the meals is a fixed menu. Breakfast is served on the porch room off the kitchen between 7:30 and 10 am. Depending on the day, breakfast might be eggs prepared every way imaginable, pancakes or waffles or it could be sausages and thick crisp bacon. Homemade grits and yogurts are also available each day as are home made muffins and breads. Lunch is always a boxed lunch in a picnic basket to take along on your mid day excursions around Cumberland Island. Lunch could include: a Nicoise salad with roasted potato, hard boiled egg, tomato, olives and vinaigrette along with a smoked trout salad with house flatbread crackers, finished off with home made graham cracker pecan cookies. We enjoyed this on our first full day of our stay. Cookies are available throughout the afternoon. Soooo good!
Cocktails officially start at 6:30 pm in the self service bar and spread to the veranda and the living room, where hors-d’oeuvres are served. The dinner bell rings at 7:30 for all to assemble in the dining room. Since the maximum number of guests at any one time is 20 you get to know everyone like they were family or good neighbors. Each evening meal is a fantastic four course meal. The Inn’s two gardens provide most of the produce for the daily meals.
Guests may only arrive at the Greyfield Inn by boat from Fernandina Beach Florida aboard the “Lucy Ferguson”. Sometimes boat passengers will have the good fortune of having one of the Inn owners, Mitty Ferguson, as their boat captain for the 45 minute ride.
National Seashore Designation
Greyfield sits on a private 200 acre compound of pristine oceanfront land devoted to guests’ enjoyment. The National Park Service owns most of the rest of Cumberland Island. Cumberland is one of the 10 National Seashore Parks. It is not the smallest but it is, by far, the least visited. Most of the National Seashores have millions of visitors each year.
Cumberland has about 50 thousand visitors per year. None of the National Seashores are more inviting than Cumberland with its desolate beaches, unbuilt interior, four historic mansions in various states of repair and a scattering of hidden houses.
The Island also boast of the very small and remote church where John F Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in 1996. They too were seeking a magical place just as we were. The Greyfield Inn represents a type of destination that is rapidly disappearing from the United States. It is the exact opposite of so many once pleasurable destinations that have become Disneyworldesque.
