Greyfield Inn

Greyfield
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
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Location	Cumberland Island, Camden County, Georgia
Coordinates	30.77979°N 81.46854°W / 30.77979; -81.46854
Area	203 acres (0.82 km^2)
Built	1901-1905
Architect	MacClure & Spahr
Architectural style	Colonial Revival
MPS	Cumberland Island National Seashore MRA
NRHP reference No.	03000675[1]
Added to NRHP	July 24, 2003

Greyfield Inn is a hotel on Cumberland Island in Camden County, Georgia, the only hotel on the island. The inn is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[2] It was opened to the public as an inn in 1962 [3] in a Colonial Revival-style house named Greyfield located on an estate of the same name; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.[1]

The NRHP-listed area is 203 acres (0.82 km^2) and includes six contributing buildings and four contributing structures.[3]

History

The house was built during 1901 to 1905 for Margaret Carnegie Ricketson and her husband Oliver Ricketson, and was one of several built for Carnegie family members within a large Carnegie family estate on Cumberland.[3] Their daughter Lucy Carnegie Ferguson lived in the house for over seventy years.[4] The Carnegie family owns and manages the Inn.

The house was built on a site known in 1900 as Gray's Field.[5]: 205  The site apparently took its name from John W. Gray, a planter from Jekyll Island who in 1825 bought a 500 acre tract, then known as the Springs Plantation, south of the Stafford Plantation.[5]: 134  The Springs was the site of a home built in the early 1800s by Martha Nightingale, a daughter of Nathanael Greene, and her husband.[5]: 125 

On Sept. 21, 1996, the First African Baptist Church on the north end of the island was the location of the John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette wedding.[6]

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
2. "Hotel History - Greyfield Inn". Historic Hotels of America. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
3. Kenneth H. Thomas, Jr. and Zachary Z. Zoul (May 7, 2003). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Greyfield / Greyfield Inn". National Park Service. Retrieved August 10, 2017. With 27 photos.
4. Proposed Cumberland Island National Seashore: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation. Washington. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1972.
5. Bullard, Mary (2003). Cumberland Island: A History. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820327419.
6. "JFK Jr.'s Wedding Isle : Cumberland Island's isolation offers peace and privacy for celebs, plain folk alike". November 10, 1996. Retrieved January 1, 2023.

External links

• Greyfield Inn website