On Jekyll Island, a barrier island off Georgia’s southern coast near the border with Florida, stands a remnant of the Gilded Age.

The Jekyll Island Club, founded in 1886 by J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, William K. Vanderbilt and others, was created as a private winter refuge for America’s richest families. Members arrived on the 5,700-acre island each winter either by yacht or on a ferry after taking a train to a nearby station on the mainland.

At its height, the club was said to host one-sixth of the world’s wealth. And yet, the clubhouse with its turreted façade conveyed refinement rather than excess.

Life followed a predictable rhythm. Afternoons included golf, riding and hunting. Dinner in the dining room was in keeping with the era’s dress codes and sensibilities, but conversation was rarely idle. It was here in 1910 that several financiers drafted the plan that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve.

After the war, Georgia’s state government purchased the island — named in the early 1700s by British colonists for Sir Joseph Jekyll, a prominent politician of the era — and created a state park. State ownership spared Jekyll from the postwar resort development that forever changed the character of many coastal communities.

Today, the Jekyll Island Club Resort is both a hotel and a historical landmark. Guests walk the same oak-shaded paths once used by the Morgans, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. The resort anchors the Jekyll Island Historic District, a 240-acre area with more than 30 period buildings.

Among them are the so-called cottages — substantial houses that served as seasonal residences. Crane Cottage, built in 1917 by Chicago industrialist Richard Teller Crane Jr., displays Italian Renaissance symmetry, while Indian Mound, built for the Rockefellers, reflects shingle-style simplicity.

Faith Chapel, completed in 1904, was established as a nondenominational house of worship, even though many members were Episcopalians. Inside the wood-shingled chapel is a vivid stained-glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany titled “David Set Singers Before the Lord.” It depicts King David commanding singers to praise God and is one of the few Tiffany windows known to bear the artist’s signature.

Two-thirds of the island remains protected from development. The beaches, dunes and forest look much as they did when the club was founded. Driftwood Beach, on the northern end, is known for weathered trees, which look otherworldly. The Georgia Sea Turtle Center, housed in a converted period building, rehabilitates injured turtles.

Back at the resort, the public rooms, including the dining room with its high ceilings and polished wood, preserve a turn-of-the-last-century atmosphere even if guests no longer dress the part. The guest rooms, by contrast, are modern and come with all the conveniences expected of a hotel carrying a three-diamond rating from AAA.

Spring and summer bring the warmest days, but a winter visit best mirrors what members of the original club experienced. Christmas is particularly striking, as the resort is illuminated by more than 2 million lights.

If you go

Jekyll Island is about an hour’s drive north of Jacksonville, Florida, or 90 minutes south of Savannah, Georgia. The nearest commercial airport — across a six-mile-long causeway — is Brunswick Golden Isles Airport, though most visitors fly in and out of Jacksonville.

The Jekyll Island Club Resort, a non-chain hotel operated by Noble House Hotels & Resorts, offers 200 rooms in the historic club as well as several cottages that are popular with large families and groups. Additionally, the resort includes a modern, all-suite beachfront hotel, the Jekyll Ocean Club. While two distinct hotels, they operate as one property and guests have privileges throughout the resort.

Dennis Lennox writes a travel column for The Christian Post.