Sea Island's Mediterranean-revival flagship, one of three Forbes Five-Star experiences on this private Golden Isles barrier island, with the Main Building, the Wings, the Beach Club, the Ocean Residences, and a five-mile private coast.
The Cloister is the Forbes Five-Star flagship of Sea Island, a private barrier island on Georgia's Golden Isles. Open since 1928 and rebuilt in 2006, it pairs old-school Southern service with a five-mile private beach, a Forbes Five-Star spa, and championship golf. The clear first choice for traditional family and milestone stays.
"Check-in here still feels like arriving somewhere that remembers you. The turndown, the staff who greet a returning family by name, the unhurried pace at the front door, this is the register of American resort service that most of the segment quietly let go."
The Cloister is the social anchor of Sea Island, the resort half of a private, gated barrier island on Georgia's Golden Isles. The original Cloister opened in 1928 to a Mediterranean-revival design by Addison Mizner, the Palm Beach architect, for the Sea Island Company, the Howard Coffin venture that had bought the island two years earlier. That building was taken down and rebuilt in 2006 in a faithful, larger reconstruction that keeps the Spanish-Mediterranean look while bringing the rooms to a contemporary five-star scale. Worth knowing, and worth saying plainly: what you stay in today is the 2006 building, not the original Mizner fabric.
Accommodations sit in four settings. The Main Building holds the headline Mizner-revival rooms and suites, riverside and a short walk from the spa. The Garden, North, and South Wings, steps from the Main Building, run along the Black Banks River. The Beach Club rooms and suites face the Atlantic, with quick access to three pools and the sand. The gated Cloister Ocean Residences, a second enclave with their own oceanfront infinity pool, are the largest accommodations on the island, with full kitchens and direct beach access, the long-standing choice for the four-generation family booking. The whole property is set on roughly 50 acres, with five miles of private beach across the street.
Sea Island carries three Forbes Five-Star ratings: The Cloister (the hotel, rated since 2009), The Lodge at Sea Island (the golf-focused sister property on St. Simons Island), and The Spa at Sea Island. The Cloister is also AAA Five-Diamond. The resort's Georgian Room restaurant held Forbes Five-Star from 2008 to 2022, for years the only Five-Star restaurant in Georgia, but it no longer carries that rating; it operates today as the Georgian Rooms, the Cloister's main dining room, alongside Tavola (Italian) and the River Bar. If a current Forbes Five-Star dinner is the point of the trip, that box no longer ticks here, and an honest guide should say so.
Beyond the rooms, the resort runs three championship golf courses, including Seaside and Plantation, home of the PGA Tour's RSM Classic; the Beach Club for the casual family beach day; and Broadfield, an inland sporting estate for shooting, fishing, and equestrian days that is the most distinctly Sea Island offering. Service is the property's real proposition. Nightly turndown, anticipatory front-desk recognition for returning members and families, and unusually long staff tenure produce a level of formality, jacket-preferred dining among it, that reads as either reassuringly old-school or stiff, depending on your taste.
One concierge tip: if a sunset matters to you, ask for a river-side room in the North or South Wing rather than an ocean-side room across the street. Those wings face west over the Black Banks River, and the view from a private patio there at dusk is the quiet one most first-time guests miss.
In one line: the Cloister is at its best for traditional multi-generation family stays and for milestone honeymoons and anniversaries that prefer a formal, service-led register over contemporary design. Here is how each one actually plays out.
This is the canonical American multi-generation family booking, and it has been since the resort opened. The Ocean Residences (one to three bedrooms, full kitchens) suit a whole family under one roof; Camp Cloister and the children's programs cover the kids; the Beach Club's three pools, the five-mile beach, and the river fishing cover the in-between hours; and the Broadfield sporting estate gives the grandparents and teenagers something neither expected. For shorter stays, ask for connecting rooms in the Main Building.
For a honeymoon in the Forbes Five-Star traditionalist key rather than the contemporary-design key, the Cloister is the Southeast's answer. A Main Building ocean-view suite is the central booking; the Forbes Five-Star spa handles the couples treatments; and a private beach setup covers the long, do-nothing mornings. Couples who also want golf often split the trip with two nights at The Lodge.
Anniversaries scale to the year: a Garden Wing room for a quiet weekend, a Main Building ocean suite for a milestone, an Ocean Residence with the family for a major one. The resort's institutional memory is the real gift here. Tell the concierge it is an anniversary when you book, and a returning couple is usually recognized on arrival without further prompting.
The short version: the Cloister earns its rating on service and setting, but it will not suit everyone, and a few things are worth knowing before you commit. After 10,000 check-ins, these are the caveats I would want a guest to hear first.
It is genuinely remote. The nearest major airports, Savannah and Jacksonville, are each about 90 minutes away; Brunswick Golden Isles (BQK) is closer but a small regional field. That isolation is the appeal for some guests and a logistical chore for others.
The register is formal and traditional. Dress codes at dinner, a classic Southern-resort tone, and a multi-generation member culture make it wonderful for some and stiff for travelers who want a contemporary design-hotel mood.
The building is a 2006 reconstruction. Architectural purists hoping to stay inside Addison Mizner's original 1928 walls should know the current main building replaced it; the look is preserved, the fabric is not.
The dining no longer holds a Forbes Five-Star. The Georgian Room lost the rating it carried from 2008 to 2022. The hotel and spa Five-Stars stand; the restaurant one does not.
It is a large, busy resort, not a hideaway. Weddings, conferences, and big family weeks run concurrently. If you want a small, quiet property, the sister Lodge or a different address will serve you better.
100 Cloister Drive
Sea Island, GA 31561
United States
About 90 minutes from Savannah and from Jacksonville; roughly 1 hour from Brunswick Golden Isles Airport (BQK)
Main Building rooms & suites
Garden / North / South Wings (river views)
Beach Club rooms & suites (oceanfront)
Cloister Ocean Residences (1–3 BR, kitchens)
Rates vary by season; see live rates
Founded 1928; main building rebuilt 2006
Forbes Five-Star (hotel & spa)
AAA Five-Diamond
Set on ~50 acres; private island
Forbes Five-Star Spa at Sea Island
Five-mile private beach & Beach Club
Three championship golf courses (RSM Classic)
Camp Cloister children's programs
Broadfield sporting estate
Rates vary by season and accommodation. The Cloister books six to nine months ahead for Christmas, spring break, and major holiday weeks; Ocean Residences and the largest suites need longer lead times for those dates.
See Current Rates →Sea Island's Forbes Five-Star sister property on St. Simons Island, the smaller, golf-focused British country-house counterpart to the Cloister.
The next luxury beach cluster down the coast, an easy pairing for a longer Golden Isles to north-Florida trip.
The historic-district city stay that most guests combine with Sea Island on the way in or out.
Last updated June 14, 2026
Subscriber only hotel offers, suite upgrade alerts, and one honest review every Sunday. Free, weekly, unsubscribe anytime.