POINT CLEAR, Ala. (AP) -- The Grand Hotel in Point Clear has returned in all its Southern glory, as it reopened its doors on Nov. 1.
All 405 guest rooms and seven restaurants and lounges are finished and ready -- after a $50 million renovation to repair damage from Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. The storm surge poured six feet of water into the main building.
"We've spent millions of dollars putting it back exactly like it was," said David Clark, general manager of the Grand Hotel Marriott Resort, Golf Club & Spa on Mobile Bay. "We're 160 years new."
Last March, 200 rooms and some of the resort's amenities reopened, but the historic lobby, most of the restaurants, the bay view guest rooms and meeting rooms were still being renovated.
Amenities on the 550-acre resort include a 20,000-square-foot spa, two 18-hole championship golf courses, eight tennis courts, a croquet lawn, a 500,000-gallon pool and a 37-slip marina.
Retired businessman John Nordan admitted that his "world was turned upside down" when the hotel closed after Katrina. Every morning for the previous eight years, he had enjoyed his coffee and the newspaper in the hotel lobby. He and his wife own a condominium on Lakewood Golf Course.
Nordan has resumed his 5:30 a.m. coffee ritual, along with Miss Gigi, his miniature dachshund and the official hotel spa mascot.
"The employees spoil me rotten," Nordan said.
The staff on duty now totals 390, according to Clark. That includes 231 new associates who have had 5,000 hours of training over the last few weeks. The resort will employ 600 during the peak season from March to October.
The lushly landscaped grounds and gardens are in full flower -- three acres of seashore paspalum salt-tolerant grass and 8,000 plants have been installed on the hotel grounds, according to the landscaping crew. That includes 500 Knock Out roses and 2,000 azaleas.
The 37,000 square feet of meeting space was remodeled, and includes a new ballroom and eight new meeting rooms complete with chandeliers.
The refurbished guest rooms sport the latest bedding packages, including 300-thread-count sheets, and every room features artwork by Nall. And each room has a view, some of the bay, the pool, the marina or the gardens.
The historic lobby with its six-sided fireplace has been restored and features new red-stained oak floors and antique furnishings.
More than half a million people visited the resort annually before Katrina, according to Clark. The Grand hopes to reclaim those guests. So far, 235 rooms are booked for Thanksgiving.
The Grand's room rates range from $179 per night to the peak season rate of $299 per night, according to Bill Lang, director of public relations for PCH Hotels & Resorts, which owns and manages the Grand. PCH is funded by the Retirement Systems of Alabama.
The 1,800-square-foot presidential suite in the spa building rents for $1,000 per night, and one of the most recent celebrity guests was singer Patti LaBelle, who was in town to perform at BayFest in Mobile, according to Lang.
After Katrina, the hotel rescheduled many of its conferences to other PCH hotel properties in the state, Lang said. "We tried to keep them within the family," he said.
The staff has been testing its menus and services with in-house guests, according to Clark. And two weddings took place at the newly redone outdoor deck called Julep Point, which overlooks the bay on a recent weekend.
But now, he said, "you can walk in, and it will be business as usual."
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
