For most of the year, our island is a quiet place with just over 4,300 residents and a few winter vacationers looking for a peaceful retreat. But in the summertime, it’s a completely different scenario. The population soars with crowds and the revelry that comes from hotels on Front Beach and an abundance of short-term rentals.
Over the decades, there has been an increased opportunity for investors to fill the demand for visitors who want a taste of what we love about the Isle of Palms. But one of the very first hotels on the island is now an outlier, having relinquished its identity as vacation lodging and providing a mix of rental office space and apartments within its walls.
It’s likely that you have seen the place, since it’s right across from the post office. And you’ve probably driven past it a thousand times without even noticing. But for 60 years, Hotel Marion by the Sea, on the corner of Palm Boulevard and 10th Avenue, was a popular spot for summertime visitors, although it reflected the more modest traditional “beach house” look of a bygone era. Also modest was the price of a room at the Hotel Marion. Folks didn’t seem to mind the two-block walk to the ocean, since they were a short distance but a world away from the hubbub of Front Beach. Plus, they could get a glimpse of the sunset on the Intracoastal Waterway from the hotel’s grand porches.
Hotel Marion was built in 1912 and was the second hotel on the island. When current owner and island resident Bill Casey bought it, he continued to run it as a hotel. Lynn Ward’s parents once rented a room there when she was a baby. “They made a bed for me in the bathtub,” she mused, since there was no such thing as a Pack ‘n Play back then.
In 1973, the hotel was converted to apartments. In the decades since, various businesses have also occupied space in the building, including a yoga studio about 10 years ago and an attorney’s office now on the first floor.
The next time you stop by the post office, glance across 10th Avenue and imagine the Hotel Marion by the Sea in its heyday, a small compound bordered by nearby woods and palmetto trees with only the sea breeze to cool the hot muggy nights — a place for vacationers who came to taste our slice of heaven.
By Mary Coy
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