The Cloister, Sea Island’s crown jewel, sparkles anew

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The glorious Grande Dame of Georgia’s coast is back for her second act.

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Cloister at Sea Island

Guest room floors are covered in custom-commissioned hand-loomed Turkish rugs, created in Turkish villages using ancient spinning and dying techniques. Bed sheets have a thread count of 500.

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The Cloister at Sea Island

Tthe Cloister at Sea Island The new main building at the Cloister at Sea Island echoes many of the architectural cues included in the 1928 design by Addison Mizner and is meant to suggest a luxurious old residence.

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The Cloister at Sea Island

The Spanish Lounge, one of the Cloister’s most memorable features, was dismantled and reassembled within the new structure.

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The Cloister at Sea Island

Intricate plaster designs create a feeling of glamour in the rooms at the new Cloister at Sea Island.

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Count on the 21st-century reincarnation of the Cloister at Sea Island to be the epitome of good taste and Old World charm, just like the 1928 original that has graciously hosted U.S. presidents, world dignitaries, royalty, celebrities, sports legends, CEOs and regular folks.

After nearly three years, the no-expenses-spared rebuilding of the hotel in the classic Mediterranean style of its predecessor and the meticulous restoration of the 1928 Spanish Lounge within the new structure is complete.

The gleaming inn on the Black Banks River has been welcoming guests since April 1, even as work continues on a new Spa at Sea Island, expected to open in October, and a renewed Beach Club, coming in mid-2007. Festivities are planned for October to coincide with the resort’s 78th anniversary.

The money-is-no-object set is beating a path to the resort. The hotel is heavily booked through summer with guests willing to shell out $650 a night for a room or as much as $5,000 for a suite to be among the first to settle into this veritable lap of luxury.

The Cloister’s original main building closed in December 2003 after a 75th anniversary observance in October and was torn down to make way for construction of a luxury hotel, the centerpiece of a $350 million resort redevelopment plan. The Cloister continued to operate, offering accommodations in newer buildings surrounding the landmark hotel and even hosting the G-8 Summit during the summer of 2004.

The Cloister is a hotel for today’s competitive upscale travel market, says Robert Rippee, vice president of brand and marketing for Sea Island Resorts. (Rippee is no longer vice-president of marketing, though he served in that capacity on the original date of this article’s publication.)

Its loyal fans notwithstanding, the dowager hotel was showing its years. The bigger, posher hotels that have opened in recent years threatened to overshadow the aging beauty. Although the Cloister has consistently ranked high in travel magazine “best of” polls, competing in the booming luxury travel market was becoming more difficult. Rebuilding rather than upgrading seemed to be the answer.

Rippee says the reaction of people who see the new structure for the first time is one of amazement. “They stand there, mouth hanging open, eyes wide open. ‘Wow!’ You hear that a lot.”

Even so, the Cloister is not just about stunning architecture, but, Rippee says, “experiences that have spanned generations of families.”

“People associate the Cloister very strongly with traditions in their family. We had to bring forward many items people associate with those traditions. A good example is the Spanish Lounge, which people had such a connection to.”

He said one woman who had been married in the Spanish Lounge was initially upset that it was being uprooted and worried that it would never be the same. But when she saw the room recently, he says, she was thrilled with the restored room that had held so many memories for her.

“We’re about experiences, memories and service,” Rippee says. “What we want is to engage our guests.”

The special commemorative issue of the Sea Island Resorts’ newsletter, Shore Lines, calls the transformation “the Rebirth of an Icon.”

No doubt, Sea Island Co. chairman and CEO Bill Jones III and his team have not only respectfully re-created the ambience and look of the original Cloister, but taken it a step further.

“What we are creating today is what I think architect Addison Mizner would have done in 1928 had he been building a permanent structure,” writes Jones, whose grandfather Alfred W. “Bill” Jones and Sea Island Co. founder Howard Coffin built the original Cloister as a temporary inn, basically to see if a luxury retreat on the Georgia coast would fly.

If ever there was an inn whose name became synonymous with luxury and indulgence, it was the Cloister. And that’s unlikely to change, as the new 100-room hotel with 30 suites in the central building (as well 35 rooms in two wings and 49 rooms and suites at the Beach Club) brings new luster to the resort.

Architect Peter Capone’s architectural design, based on Mizner’s vision, is intended to make guests feel as if they are entering a grand private residence on a coastal Southern estate. Interior designer Pamela Hughes brings the residential feel inside.

“The idea was for someone to walk into this beautiful building and say, ‘This must be where the Jones family has lived for the past four generations,’ ” Hughes says.

The familiar round turret at the entranceway has been replicated; it’s just switched places with the Spanish Lounge, which was dismantled piece by piece before demolition and rebuilt using the original materials, including the beams and roof decking.

Last fall, three fully restored 1928 stained-glass windows designed by Mizner were ceremoniously rehung in the lounge.

Mizner’s original architecture is reflected throughout: in the courtyards, red barrel-tiled roofs, intricate plasterwork, graceful stuccoed archways and arched windows, columns in the main dining room, and heart-pine beams in the library.

The heart cypress ceiling and pecky cypress beams in the Smoking Lounge are examples of the river-recovered specialty woods, some of which are likely more than 200 years old, used in construction. The bar in the River Bar is made from a single piece of recovered long-leaf heart pine.

The hardwood floors in guest rooms, halls and public areas are covered with 670 hand-loomed Turkish rugs commissioned by the Cloister. Hundreds of weavers in Turkish villages used ancient spinning and dyeing techniques to make the rugs.

Elegant guest rooms feature wood beamed ceilings, custom-made furnishings, ornate gilded mirrors, rich floral bed coverings and draperies and creamy white comforters, original artwork and reproductions of early Georgia maps from the Sea Island Co.’s collection.

The creature comforts are over the top: Italian linens, 45-inch LCD high-definition televisions, stone baths, Lady Primrose toiletries and personalized stationery. Riverside suites offer 24-hour butler service.

Now that’s Southern hospitality. And it’s what Rippee is talking about when he says the Cloister creates a distinctive experience.

“There’s only one,” he says.

IF YOU GO

• Getting there: Take I-75 south to I-16, then east to I-95. Take Exit 38, and drive toward U.S. 17. Go right on U.S. 17 south, then left onto the F.J. Torras Causeway. Turn left onto Sea Island Road at the first traffic light at the end of the causeway. Follow Sea Island Road and proceed straight onto Sea Island Causeway at the traffic light (intersection of Sea Island Road and Frederica Road). It’s about a five-hour drive.

• Rates: $650-$5,000 through Dec. 31, 2008.

• Information: 1-800-732-4752, www.seaisland.com.