During the Gilded Age, Jekyll Island, Georgia, was one of the most exclusive resort destinations in the United States. Owned by the most elite and inaccessible social club in America, a group whose members included Rockefellers, Pulitzers, Vanderbilts, Goulds, and Morgans, this quiet refuge in the Golden Isles was the perfect winter getaway for the wealthy new industrial class of the snowbound North. In this delightful book, a companion volume to The Jekyll Island Club: Southern Haven for America's Millionaires, June Hall McCash focuses on the social club's members and the "cottages" they built near the clubhouse between 1888 and 1928. Illustrated with hundreds of never-before-published photographs from private family collections, The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony tells the stories of each home, the owners' connections with the island, and their interactions with one another. While quite grand by today's standards, these homes were relatively simple in design, built to enhance rather than subdue the island's wild beauty. The cottages of Jekyll's "Millionaire's Row" were not nearly as lavish as their Newport counterparts, but typified Victorian resort architecture from New England to Florida, ranging from Queen Anne to shingle to Spanish and Mediterranean styles. After the Jekyll Island Club disbanded following World War II, the state of Georgia acquired the island to ensure its conservation. Once threatened by years of neglect and disrepair, the elegant clubhouse has been converted to a hotel, and many of the gracious cottages have been restored to their original condition. The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony is a fascinating guide to a unique treasure of architectural history, as well as a personal look at golden days gone by.

From its inception in 1886, the Jekyll Island Club included in its elite membership the nation's wealthiest families, among them the Rockefellers, Pulitzers, Vanderbilts, and Morgans. Far from the hectic northern cities where the members tended their fortunes, this private island refuge off Georgia's coast offered the wealthy a tranquil change of pace. Bringing together more than 240 fascinating photographs, Barton and June McCash trace the sixty-two-year history of this exclusive retreat whose members at one time were reputed to represent one-seventh of the nation's wealth. From the time of the club's opening, members came to Jekyll Island each winter to seek elegant leisure, arriving on yachts or in private train cars from New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Capturing the lives and amusements of the very wealthy, this evocative photographic history presents descriptions of elaborate costume balls and playful outdoor parties; the Rockefeller clan gathering at water's edge and J. P. Morgan lounging by the pool; Victor Astor's "patented beach boat" and the Goulds' private indoor tennis court; the Vanderbilts' yacht anchored offshore and the imposing "cottages" built by individual members. During their stays, members amused themselves in a variety of pursuits. In the 1890s they organized bicycling clubs and held races on the beach. Hunting was also for a time a favorite activity and the island was regularly stocked with imported wildlife--pheasant, quail, turkey, and bucks. By 1919, however, the game committee had dwindled to one member, and prime hunting grounds had been cleared for golf courses and tennis courts. The hub of the island's social life, however, was the clubhouse, where members gathered in formal attire to converse, while drinking fine wine and dining on freshly caught game and local delicacies. The seclusion that Jekyll Island offered was not impenetrable. On the day after Christmas in 1900, the country's fascination with technology could no longer be resisted, and the sound of a gasoline automobile disturbed the island's quiet glades for the first time. Despite the immense wealth of the club, it was not immune to the stock market crash of 1893 and the Panic of 1907. The club managed to survive World War I intact and enjoyed a "golden age" from 1919 to 1927, during which time it held its own against the increasingly popular Florida resorts. The stock market crash of 1929, however, initiated a death spiral. Membership declined steadily throughout the 1930s, and when the United States entered World War II, the club closed its doors forever. Based on surviving club records, newspaper accounts, and letters and diaries of members and guests, The Jekyll Island Club chronicles an era when leisure was the preserve of the wealthy. For more than six decades the island, now a state park, served as a haven for millionaires. As one visitor described the Jekyll Island Club, it was "the only place of its kind in the world--and will never be again."

Personality conflicts and unsanctioned love affairs also had an impact, and McCash's narrative is filled with the names of Jekyll's powerful and often colorful families, including Horton, Martin, Leake, and du Bignon."--Jacket.

In this sweeping historical saga, you will discover the Millionaires' joys, tribulations, and deeply guarded secrets - told through the unique voices of four Club employees.

"Written in a lively, accessible style by Jingle Davis and lavishly illustrated with photographs by Benjamin Galland, Island Passages is a solid work of public history that presents a carefully researched document of Jekyll Island, Georgia, from its geologic beginning as a shifting sand spit to its present-day ownership by the state of Georgia. While many books have been published about Jekyll, most focus on specific eras or episodes of island history. Davis and Galland's book makes an important contribution to the island's literature because it synthesizes all these aspects into a comprehensive and beautifully executed history"--Provided by publisher.

This lively guidebook surveys four hundred buildings within the Atlanta metropolitan area--from the sleek marble and glass of the Coca-Cola Tower to the lancet arches and onion domes of the Fox Theater, from the quiet stateliness of Roswell's antebellum mansions to the art-deco charms of the Varsity grill. Published in conjunction with the Atlanta chapter of the American Institute of Architects, it combines historical, descriptive, and critical commentary with more than 250 photographs and area maps. As the book makes clear, Atlanta has two faces: the "Traditional City," striving to strike a balance between the preservation of a valuable past and the challenge of modernization, and also the "Invisible Metropolis," a decentralized city shaped more by the isolated ventures of private business than by public intervention. Accordingly, the city's architecture reflects a dichotomy between the northern-emulating boosterism that made Atlanta a boom town and the genteel aesthetic more characteristic of its southern locale. The city's recent development continues the trend; as Atlanta's workplaces become increasingly "high-tech," its residential areas remain resolutely traditional. In the book's opening section, Dana White places the different stages of Atlanta's growth--from its beginnings as a railroad town to its recent selection as the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics--in their social, cultural, and economic context; Isabelle Gournay then analyzes the major urban and architectural trends from a critical perspective. The main body of the book consists of more than twenty architectural tours organized according to neighborhoods or districts such as Midtown, Druid Hills, West End, Ansley Park, and Buckhead. The buildings described and pictured capture the full range of architectural styles found in the city. Here are the prominent new buildings that have transformed Atlanta's skyline and neighborhoods: Philip John and John Burgee's revivalist IBM Tower, John Portman's taut Westin Peachtree Plaza, and Richard Meier's gleaming, white-paneled High Museum of Art, among others. Here too are landmarks from another era, such as the elegant residences designed in the early twentieth century by Neel Reid and Philip Shutze, two of the first Atlanta-based architects to achieve national prominence. Included as well are the eclectic skyscrapers near Five Points, the postmodern office clusters along Interstate 285, and the Victorian homes of Inman Park. Easy-to-follow area maps complement the descriptive entries and photographs; a bibliography, glossary, and indexes to buildings and architects round out the book. Whether first-time visitors or lifelong residents, readers will find in these pages a wealth of fascinating information about Atlanta's built environment.