Video Preview

Hotels with a Past

Hotel With A Past: Grand Hotel Golf Resort & Spa

There’s a good chance that most of you have never been to Mobile. Even if you have been to Alabama, there is an equally good chance you haven’t discovered the history or its coast. If you head east, about an hour outside of Mobile, you’ll come here to Point Clear. It’s only on about 5.5 square miles, but that’s where you’ll discover the Grand Hotel Spa and Golf Course. It dates back to 1847, and it survived everything from the Civil War to Hurricane Katrina. It’s truly a hotel with a past and a great story to tell.

 

The hotel goes back more than a century. It survived the Civil War, fires, hurricanes, and the Great Depression. Each time it’s been rebuilt, but as its history confirms, the Grand Hotel has never been redefined. What you see today opened its doors in 1941, and while its most recent renovation was completed in 2018, the Grand continues to tell its original story.

 

The resort hugs about 1.3 miles of the shoreline on Mobile Bay, but that’s just the beginning. Mobile Bay is huge, 413 square miles, and it holds a unique place in American history. During the Civil War, this is where the Confederacy lost its last major port in the South, and that’s just the beginning.

 

There’s a daily ceremony and cannon fire to commemorate the Grand’s military history. During the Civil War, it served as a hospital, and then as a training facility in World War II.    

 

In 1944, under the ownership of the Waterman Steamship Corporation, the hotel was leased to the United States military for $1, a gesture of its contribution during the war. Helmed by Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Thompson, in just five months, 5,000 men went through this secret training facility and were deployed to the Pacific Theater. The secret mission was referred to as Operation Ivory Soap — a name, according to Thompson, that was suggested offhandedly by someone returning from washing his hands. The name stuck. 

 

Guests who stay in suite 1108, now named the Thompson Suite, get to experience that history firsthand. During its time as a training facility, this was Lieutenant Colonel Thompson’s strategy room. The Thompson Suite isn’t the only way you can get up close to history at the Grand Hotel. The Grand Hotel, part of the historic hotels of America, proudly displays a special book in the lobby that dates back to 1906 that includes past guests’ names and dates they stated at the hotel.

 

The Grand is located on about 600 hundred acres, and one of the best ways to see it is by bike. The trails will take you by the cabanas and the beach. The cool part is going beyond that to the Confederate cemetery and the expanded gardens. Even the chef has a garden which is located right next to the kitchen.

 

Cory Garrison, the Grand’s Executive Chef, sticks closely to the original Alabama recipe when making true southern Alabama style gumbo. I was there to help him work his magic.

 

First, we built the base using a chicken stock, and of course, Alabama shrimp. Then, what the chef refers to as the gumbo’s trinity: onions, bell peppers, and celery. There’s also the rue, tomatoes, and of course, okra and lots of it. After a lot of time and a lot of ingredients, our gumbo was finished.

 

There’s Alabama gumbo, but there’s also another local tradition maintained at the Grand. Listen for the ringing of the bell. You’ll hear it every day in the late afternoon or early evening. It’s the call for everyone to stop what they’re doing, look up and appreciate the southern Alabama sunset.