St. Simons Island
Georgia


The Experience

Georgia's toniest offshore retreat, the Sea Island development, is best known for its largest resort, the 1928 Addison Mizner-designed Cloister, where families return for generations and dinner is a formal affair. But the 2001-vintage Lodge at Sea Island -- actually on neighboring St. Simons Island -- aims for the intimacy of a clubhouse, with 40 rooms in a Tudor-style, fairway-side inn. The look, with antique-filled living spaces and coffered hallways, is formal, but the feel, befitting its country-club atmosphere, is relaxed. And while guests have access to the entire array of Sea Island resorts, the Lodge benefits by being apart from them, tranquilly residing on the southern end of the island.

The Rooms

Outside on St. Simons, it's the heat of the Georgia bight and the romance of moss-draped Spanish oaks. Inside the spacious rooms at the Lodge, it's countryside England, from Oriental carpets on the wood floors up to wood beams on the ceiling, with richly patterned bedspreads and overstuffed sofas in between. Marble countertops, floors and tubs in the bath maintain upper-crust style. Personalized stationery in the desk and an attending butler make you feel you're running the estate, with its oak-dappled fairways and oceanfront right outside your windows.

The Service

Room butlers go the distance, from unpacking your bags to drawing your rose-petal bath. But service is discreet, as befits the intimate property; staffers are quick to pick up leave-me-alone vibes and disappear until a sixth sense tells them you need a martini.

The Highlights

The Lodge at Sea Island compensates for its small size by loading up on amenities, beginning with a loaner Range Rover programmed with GPS directions to island hot spots and equipped with a digital camera to record the afternoon. Or experience a different kind of drive: Davis Love III put his stamp on the challenging 18-hole course that buffers the resort, one of three available to guests. Inviting off-site attractions include salt marsh tours to view the native flora and fauna, a full-service spa at the Cloisters that offers shoreside fitness classes, and the endless, stroll-inviting beach. The best part of staying at the Lodge is basking in the calm and quiet of the very adult refuge, especially at sundown when a lone bagpiper signals from the fairway another day's magical end.

-- Elaine Glusac

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