Most of you have probably heard of Andrew Carnegie, right? Pittsburg steel tycoon from the late nineteenth century. Although Andrew Carnegie gets most of the Carnegie family recognition, his brother, Thomas contributed much to the family's steel success and reaped the lucrative benefits. Thomas and his wife, Lucy Ferguson, picked Cumberland Island off the coast of Florida (although it's considered part of Georgia) as a vacation getaway from Pittsburg. Lucy originally bought and restored the Dungeness mansion which remains in ruins on the island now due to a fire. But Lucy also had a hand in the purchase and design of several other buildings on Cumberland Island for her children. Greyfield Inn was built for her daughter but is now open for public reservations (though it's still owned and operated by the Carnegie family). It is still outfitted with the layout and furnishings from when it was originally built in 1900, and the guests get to enjoy a true step back in history complete with no tv, internet, wifi, etc. They also get to dress for an elegant dinner each evening. By contrast, however, there are some caveats to the island that make it not so pleasurable. The bugs, for one. Cumberland Island is completely untreated with any sort of pest control, so the insects are ruthless. (Hence the giant bottle of OFF that we got at Walmart the previous day).
The boat ride from Fernandina Beach took only about 45 minutes. The boat was partially open, so I expected the ride to be breezier than it was. The lack of wind actually made the ride very unpleasant, but I don't really fault anyone for that. The moment we arrived, we immediately got attacked by mosquitos. They weren't kidding when they said the island was untreated.
One of the most amazing things about Cumberland Island are the wild horses. I read about the wild horses in reviews and other accounts of the island, but I didn't know if we would encounter them or not. We definitely did, and they are amazing! More on that in a bit.
Back to the inn itself. You have your option of several types of rooms when staying at Greyfield. Some of them include a shared bathroom, which isn't something I was willing to consider at the time. As soon as the boat arrived, we took a quick tour of the house and grounds before settling into the Porch Suite which came with its own private bath.
Each breakfast and dinner is served communally, but lunch is served via picnic lunch. Before too long, we grabbed our picnic lunch, chose some bikes from their selection, and set out to explore the south side of the island.
We rode to the Dungeness ruins and saw wild horses and turkeys. Then we continued along the path and found the most beautiful deserted beach. Who could resist such a charming place when you have a beach all to yourself. We didn't wear suits that afternoon but made a note to come back the next day.
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| Dungeness Ruins - Cumberland Island, GA |
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| Wild Horses - Cumberland Island, GA |
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| Deserted beach - Cumberland Island, GA |
After our afternoon adventure, we rode back to the inn, got showers and dressed for cocktail hour which ran from 6:00-7:15. We're pretty early eaters, so we were definitely famished by this point. They had homemade watermelon guespacho with two different kinds of salami/chorizzo, crackers, and pickles. It wasn't much, but it satisfied us until dinner at 7:30.
The dinner conversation was relatively awkward because we were easily the youngest people at the table by 30 years. We made polite small talk (and met a lady who rents a property to Matchbox 20) and enjoyed a rather overly fancy meal. The first course was crabcake followed by an oversized dinner plate with 4 sea scallops on it. Dinner was chocolate soufflets. I'm not generally a huge fan of small portion, fancy food. It was fine but not terribly satisfying.
Our night started off comfortable enough. The a/c in the room was very comfortable, but it felt like it turned off in the middle of the night because we woke up sweating. In the reviews, I recalled reading about a very carb heavy breakfast, so I was pleasantly delighted by a breakfast of eggs, sausage and potatoes. After an 8:30 breakfast, we joined the 9:30AM naturalist tour of the northern part of the island given by the Greyfield naturalist, Travis.
The tour lasted 3-4 hours and took us to the Plum Orchard Plantation home formerly owned by one of Lucy Ferguson's children and the first African American Baptist church where JFK Jr got married. The tour was very interesting but bumpy. We all sat in the back of a pickup truck on benches.
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| Nature Tour (see the gator??) - Cumberland Island, GA |
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| Nature Tour - Cumberland Island, GA |
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| Plum Orchard Plantation - Cumberland Island, GA |
When we got back from the nature tour, we ate our picnic lunch in our room while getting ready for some beach time. We rode past the Dungeness ruins again and enjoyed a lazy afternoon in the water. Have you ever had an entire beach to yourself? There's really nothing quite like it.
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| Empty Beach - Cumberland Island, GA |
Back at the inn, we enjoyed another round of appetizers including little salmon rolls with an eggplant and red pepper salsa. Dinner was a cold zucchini soup with shrimp followed by triple tail fish over squash and white beans. They gave us little pound cakes with fruit on top for dessert.
In my journal from that trip, I made the note, "after some witty conversation with a CPA, child psychologist (Catherine), architect (Sven), actor, and several former CEOs, we called it a night."
Our 2 night stay at Greyfield Inn was incredibly expensive, but such a memorable experience. How the rest of the folks at our dinner table that evening could spend an entire week there, I don't know. But perhaps they know the true meaning of unwind and relax, where after day or two, I'm ready to go again. That's the kind of traveler I am.
Next up, we left Cumberland Island and headed for Savannah.
Thanks for reading!
- Foxy the Traveler
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