Beth Hargett’s hospitality career started behind a yogurt counter. At fifteen, working at Gourmet Yogurt and Ice Cream in a Mobile mall, she absorbed a lesson from the owner, Tommy Webb, that would outlast the job: learn from everyone, but especially from the guests’ point of view. She kept the position through high school, worked up to assistant manager, and headed off to Auburn — where, like countless hospitality students before her, she waited tables at Ruby Tuesday’s to pay the bills.
It was there, in her own station, that the future arrived unannounced. A guest described the Grand Hotel at Point Clear in loving detail and asked whether she had ever been. She had not. Soon afterward she accepted an internship there. Twenty-one years later, she has never really left.
A Career Built One Move at a Time
Hargett climbed the resort ladder the honest way: event operations, banquet maître d’, pool manager, clubhouse manager, director of restaurants, assistant food and beverage director — and finally Director of Food and Beverage, the post she holds today. The only interruption was a brief stint away to help open The Junk Yard restaurant in Spanish Fort, and even that pull back toward the bay proved temporary.
Ask her why careers at the Grand run so long — the resort recently celebrated the retirement of a colleague with forty-one years of service — and her answer is equal parts geography and family. “Because we are so dynamic, people tend to land here and stay here,” she says. “It’s a lot about the location. We are like a family with lots of trust, care, and concern about the team.”
Then there is Bucky — the man for whom the main lounge, with its sweeping view of Mobile Bay, is named, statue and all. His gift, veterans of the resort say, was never forgetting a face, even after twenty-five or thirty years. He welcomed guests to the Grand for more than fifty years, and the staff still calls what he built “the Grand Tradition.”
Forty-Five Years of Storms and Renovations
The Grand’s modern story is one of relentless rebuilding. When Hargett started, the resort was a 200-room property that lived on group buyouts. Today it counts 405 rooms, a pool and beachfront complex added in 2001, and the spa building that followed in 2002 — the upgrades that turned a beloved old hotel into a world-class resort.
The hardest chapter came in 2005. A major renovation of the main building and every restaurant was on the calendar when Hurricane Katrina struck. The resort closed for sixteen months; hotel furniture washed up on Dauphin Island. Insurance rules required rebuilding exactly as it was, so the redesign waited. A decade later came the second renovation, nearly a year out of operation before reopening in September 2017 — with the food and beverage team holding service together all summer by running the main building’s operation out of the pool facility.
Out of that persistence came status. The Grand joined Marriott’s Autograph Collection — “exactly like nothing else,” in Hargett’s phrasing — and has ranked as the number one Autograph Collection resort in the United States and number six worldwide. The daily ritual of afternoon tea, cookies and a history tribute keeps the 1847 founding front and center: “Grandeur, Grits, and Glory Since 1847.”
The Vision Behind Alabama’s Resorts
Credit for the resort’s second life, Hargett says, belongs to Dr. David Bronner, the longtime chief executive of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, whose statewide campaign of resort hotels and golf courses reshaped Alabama tourism — and then surrounded those resorts with residential communities. The pitch, as she relays it: “If you’re going to stay at the hotels, why not stay forever.”
Plenty have. Many of the neighbors who settled in the Fairhope area first encountered it as guests of the Grand, and the resort’s business conferences — two- and three-day affairs with a free day to explore — and weeklong family vacations turn visitors into regulars of the local shops and restaurants.
Where to Eat When You Go
The resort’s dining map rewards a longer stay. Bayside Grill, family-friendly and open to the activity lawn, puts croquet, horseshoes and cornhole within reach of dinner. Southern Roots, the chef-driven flagship, sells out most nights — reservations advised. Breakfast and Sunday brunch are served in the Grand Hall. Bucky’s, the traditional piano bar with firepits outside, remains the sunset seat on the bay. In 1847, the handcrafted cocktail bar, mixologists present a nightly five o’clock feature — one signature, The Chiropractor, blends Plantation rum, Amaro Montenegro, Galliano and grapefruit juice. The Local Market in the lobby bakes daily, and the pool offers casual fare with a full bar.
The Overnight Christmas Miracle
The most remarkable production happens after Thanksgiving dinner ends. While guests are still finishing dessert, the entire team — split into competitive crews for each building — transforms the resort into Christmas, gingerbread villages and all. Hargett, who has never taken a holiday off in twenty-one years, describes it as the event that fills everyone’s heart with the season. It is also, she notes, the truest expression of the staff’s operating principle: “No one does anything by themselves.”
The restaurants are open to the public, with complimentary valet parking, and Hargett’s invitation doubles as the best possible review of the place: come walk the grounds, watch the sun go down over the bay, and treat the afternoon as an experience rather than a meal. After 175-plus years, the Grand Hotel has learned exactly how to make that ask.