Grand Hotel in Point Clear Reopens a Week After Hurricane Sally

POINT CLEAR, Ala. — The Grand Hotel Golf Resort and Spa in Point Clear reopened Thursday, just over a week after Hurricane Sally struck the Alabama coast, a rapid turnaround that underscored both the resort’s resilience and the region’s eagerness to get back to business after the storm. The resort reported only minimal damage from the hurricane, which came ashore near Gulf Shores on Sept. 16 and battered the eastern shore of Mobile Bay with wind and rain.

The hotel welcomed back guests at 4 p.m. on Sept. 24, according to a press release, ending an eight-day closure that had idled one of the Gulf South’s most storied resorts. Sally’s slow, soggy passage across Baldwin County downed trees and knocked out power across the region, and the Grand Hotel’s ability to restore operations so quickly — with much of its property available to guests from the first afternoon — stood out among the coast’s lodging properties.

What was open when the doors reopened

Available amenities on reopening day included main building and South Bay House guest rooms, giving returning guests a range of accommodations across the historic waterfront property. Dining and entertainment options came back online quickly as well: Bucky’s Lounge, the resort’s storied bar where live jazz has played for decades; Bayside Grill, overlooking Mobile Bay; in-room dining for guests who preferred to stay in; the Local Market for grab-and-go items; and Oak & Azalea, the resort’s restaurant named for the towering live oaks and azalea gardens that give the grounds their character.

The outdoors largely returned with the hotel. The tennis pro shop and 10 tennis courts reopened, along with the pier that stretches into Mobile Bay, the Grand Lawn that fronts the water, the feature pool, and the adult pool and cabanas. For a property whose identity is built on its bayside grounds, having the lawn, pier and pools available again a week after a hurricane was a significant statement about the state of the property.

Golf and more dining followed within days

The Jubilee Poolside Grill was set to open the following day, restoring the poolside dining option for families and guests spending the day on the water. Golf courses reopening within a few days rounded out the resort’s core offerings. The Grand Hotel’s courses — including the Lakewood Club, long one of the most celebrated golf layouts on the Gulf Coast — draw players from across the region, and their quick return mattered to the resort’s fall calendar, when golf groups traditionally arrive as summer heat fades.

Not everything reopened immediately. Additional guest rooms, Southern Roots, 1847 and the spa were expected to return in early October, general manager Scott Tripoli said. The 1847 dining room, the resort’s signature fine-dining restaurant, and Southern Roots, its elevated Southern kitchen, required more time to bring back, as did the full spa operation and the remaining blocks of guest rooms.

The Grand Hotel’s long history on Mobile Bay

The Grand Hotel has anchored Point Clear since 1847, when it opened as a summer retreat for wealthy planters escaping the heat and mosquitoes of the interior. Over more than 170 years it has survived wars, fires, hurricanes and reinventions, expanding from its original wooden structure into a sprawling resort complex that today operates as part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection. Its billiards room, built of salvaged ship timber, and its front lawn — where cannonballs from Civil War-era skirmishes are still occasionally turned up — are fixtures of Gulf Coast lore.

The resort has weathered major hurricanes before. Frederic in 1979 and Ivan in 2004 both dealt serious damage to the property, and each time the Grand rebuilt and reopened, resuming its role as one of coastal Alabama’s signature destinations. Against that history, Sally’s minimal damage and one-week closure amount to a best-case outcome for a major storm strike on the eastern shore.

Why the quick reopening matters to Baldwin County

The resort’s reopening carries weight beyond its own property lines. Point Clear and the surrounding Fairhope area depend on the visitor economy — golf groups, wedding parties, spa weekends and conference business — and every day a flagship property sits closed is a day of lost revenue that extends to restaurants, shops and service businesses across south Baldwin County. In the weeks after Sally, when much of the county was still clearing debris and waiting on power, the Grand Hotel’s reopening signaled that the eastern shore was open for guests.

Hotels also play a practical role in a disaster’s aftermath. Rooms that would otherwise sit empty house utility crews, insurance adjusters, contractors and displaced residents in the weeks following a hurricane. Getting the resort back online quickly put inventory into the market at exactly the moment workers and displaced families needed it, as the region’s recovery workforce began arriving in Baldwin County.

For the resort’s staff, the reopening restored paychecks that a prolonged closure would have interrupted. Hospitality is the dominant employer in south Baldwin County, and hurricanes idle thousands of hospitality workers across the coast at the very moment their own homes need repairs. A one-week shutdown, minimal by hurricane standards, kept the disruption to the workforce contained.

Hurricane Sally’s hit on the Alabama coast

Sally made landfall as a Category 2 storm near Gulf Shores on the morning of Sept. 16, 2020, with sustained winds around 105 mph — but its winds were only part of the story. The storm’s crawling forward motion parked it over the central Gulf Coast for hours, dropping extreme rainfall and driving a significant storm surge into the coastal communities east of Mobile Bay. Orange Beach and Gulf Shores took some of the worst structural damage on the Alabama coast, while the eastern shore communities of Daphne, Fairhope and Point Clear endured sustained tropical-storm-force winds, downed trees and widespread outages.

Across Baldwin County, the storm left a debris field of fallen oaks and pines, damaged roofs and blocked roads, and knocked out power to the vast majority of the county’s customers. Utilities warned residents that full restoration could take weeks in the hardest-hit areas, which makes the Grand Hotel’s eight-day turnaround — complete with dining venues, pools and tennis courts — all the more remarkable.

A fall season worth saving

The timing of Sally’s landfall could hardly have been worse for the coast’s hospitality industry. September sits at the front edge of the fall season, when the Alabama Gulf Coast traditionally books its strongest stretch of group business — golf trips, weddings and conferences that favor the cooler months. The Grand Hotel’s fall calendar is typically anchored by such events, and losing the season entirely would have dealt a blow the industry could ill afford after the disruptions of 2020.

Reopening the core of the property a week after landfall allowed the resort to honor much of that calendar. Guests already booked for late September and October found a property largely ready for them: rooms in the main building and South Bay House, the lawn and pools back in service, and the golf courses reopening within days of the storm.

The remaining pieces — the full slate of guest rooms, Southern Roots, 1847 and the spa — were targeted for early October, giving the resort’s signature experiences time to return before the heart of the fall season. General manager Scott Tripoli’s projection put the property on a course to be essentially whole within a month of landfall, a pace few properties on the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast have matched after a direct strike.

For now, guests returning to the Grand Hotel will find the essentials waiting: a room overlooking Mobile Bay, jazz in Bucky’s Lounge, a meal on the lawn and the pier stretching out over the water — much as it has for more than 170 years, through every storm the Gulf has sent its way.

Guests planning a return visit in the coming weeks will find most of the property operating, with a short list of exceptions still coming back online. The main building and South Bay House guest rooms are available, and the resort advises guests booked into other accommodations to confirm their room assignments as the remaining blocks return in early October. Dining, pools, tennis, the pier and the golf courses are largely back in service.

Planning a post-storm stay

Travelers considering the Grand Hotel this fall should note a few practical realities of a coastal resort one month after a hurricane. The grounds have been cleared and the damaged trees removed, but the surrounding community is still recovering, so guests will see curbside debris piles and repair work in Point Clear, Fairhope and along Scenic Highway 98 as they travel the eastern shore. Power has been restored to the area, though occasional outages can linger in pockets of Baldwin County in the weeks after a major storm.

The payoff is availability. With some travelers still hesitant to book coastal Alabama after the storm, fall reservations that would normally fill months in advance may be easier to secure this year — particularly for midweek stays and golf packages. Visitors who come now also put money directly into the recovery: resort wages, restaurant tabs and golf fees all flow to a local economy working to get back on its feet after Sally.

The resort’s management has emphasized that guests should expect the full experience to return in stages. The spa’s complete menu of treatments, the fine-dining rooms and every guest room block were targeted for early October, and travelers can confirm the status of specific amenities when booking. What reopened first — the rooms, the lawns, the pools, the pier and the lounges — covers the core of the classic Grand Hotel stay, and the historic property that has outlasted every hurricane since 1847 is once again welcoming guests to the shores of Mobile Bay.