Showoffs

MIDCENTURY HOMES PROUDLY DISPLAY THE ELEMENTS OF CONSTRUCTION—RAFTERS, JOISTS, CONCRETE BLOCKS—WHILE VICTORIAN HOMES HIDE THEM.

“Pulford Cottage” (this page and opposite, top) features roman brick—a favorite building material of Frank Lloyd Wright—and the original knotty pine kitchen. A glass-wrapped sitting porch provides a year-round haven for guests of this rental (Parker-Kaufman Realtors), which sleeps six.

vationist with the JIA. “Midcentury structures are in danger and have been for the past few years, and now people are finally starting to look at them. Luckily for us on Jekyll, a lot of these are very much intact.”

Many of the Mad Men–era homes are defined by concrete blocks, sometimes solid and sometimes pierced to welcome ocean breezes and sunshine. Those repeating units of masonry form “kind of a broken-down, ‘coastal Brutalist’ architecture,” Davis says, coining a term. Generous windows, which create a feeling of connection with the nearby beaches and golf courses, are another hallmark.

Jean Poleszak, a former teacher who relocated to Jekyll with her husband from Buffalo, New York, owns what some consider to be the island’s quintessential midcentury modern home—though it would fit in just as well in Southern California. Her 1962 white and turquoise ranch, designed by Brunswick-based architect Cormac McGarvey, rambles alongside the Jekyll River and just north of the

Some ranches ramble, but this 1963 brick beauty on Ogden Street soars. The pierced concrete blocks promote air circulation in the hot climate, a signature of the so-called “coastal Brutalist” style found throughout the island’s residential areas.

historic district. “You couldn’t have a nicer retirement home. It has a beautiful view, and it’s an easy-care house,” she says.

Poleszak made minor updates throughout, such as replacing one bathtub with a walk-in shower, but honored the original architecture. “It’s just painted cement block. I haven’t had it tabbied or anything. We kept it exactly the way [McGarvey] built it,” she says of the exterior.

According to Davis, most of the midcentury abodes’ owners tread lightly when it comes to renovations. “The people who come here and invest and want to make Jekyll Island their