Hollybourne Cottage - Jekyll Island

Hollybourne Cottage was completed in 1890, built by Charles Maurice, a very weathly bridge builder from Athens, PA.  It is the last cottage on the island to be restored and is rumored to be haunted by 2 of the daughters of Charles.  The house was built under a steel support system with 19 brick piers in the basement.  You can see in the above picture the bridge building influence in the shape of the pier.  There was also a system of trusses used to distribute weight.  In the second picture you see a truss that extends clear to the basement that allowed the ceilings to be suspended.  Another picture shows what would be our modern electrical panel.  The  picture of the two rooms is what the family would see decending from the family living quarters on the 2nd flool, down a large staircase to the dinning room, then the parlor beyond.  You will notice in outside picture to the right what looks like might have been a swimming pool, but was in fact surrounded by heavy shrubs and the servants would come out of the house and do the family laundry and then hang them up.  The purpose was so that their "unmentionables" could not be seen.  In 1943 the federal gov't ordered the island vacated as they were afraid due to the extremely weathly and powerful people who lived here, the germans would come ashore and kill them, so they ordered everyone off.  They had to leave by boat so they could only take what they could carry and virtually left massive fortunes in homes and contents to just sit.  They were allowed to come back in 1948 but by then most of the island was in disrepair.  The State of Georgia offered a mere pittance for their properties.  The 3 daughters of Charles never came back to the house.  There still today exists some hard feeling from the decendants of these families about what happened.  Of this cottage in particular, one of the great grand-daughters lives near Atlanta and has been to the house and they say she seems grateful that it is being restored.  It is estimated that it will take several more years and close to several million dollars to bring it back to what it was.