Editor:

I read the article titled, “Hotel is beginning a ‘Grand’ new tradition” on page one in the Saturday, March 15, 2008 edition of the Fairhope Courier. The article might have been more accurately titled “Grand Hotel begins new marketing program.” The Grand Hotel wants to boot strap its location adjacent to the Point Clear Cemetery into a market program to attract visitors to the hotel.

The Point Clear Cemetery Association Inc. owns and operates the Point Clear Cemetary and the Confederate Rest Cemetery, which is contained within the property of the Point Clear Cemetery. The Point Clear Cemetery Association Inc. property is adjacent to the property of the Grand Hotel. The cemetery is in no sense “on the hotel grounds” as was incorrectly reported in the article on Page 1A. While the hotel once maintained the grounds of the cemetery under its previous owner, the hotel has no present connection to the cemetery.

Mr. David Clark, general manager opines in the article, “We [The Grand Hotel] had a lot to do with the Confederacy and the Civil War, as well as World War II.” Aside from being marketing hyperbole, it’s simply not true in either case. World War II ended in Europe on May 7, 1945 and in Japan on Sept. 2, 1945, and the idea that 5,000 sailors were somehow connected to the Grand Hotel in 1944 or 1945 is at variance with the truth.

The Grand Hotel has been disrespecting the memory of those lying in repose by using the cemetery grounds as part of Grand Hotel scavenger hunts for their guests. The hotel has not seen fit to include the Point Clear Cemetary Association Inc. in either it marketing plans or its historical celebration plans. The hotel neither notified nor invited the Point Clear Cemetery Association Inc., it officers or members to the opening ceremony scheduled for Saturday, March 15. The feeling of neighborliness reflected by the Grand in dealing with its Point Clear neighbors is reflected in the Grand Hotel cutting down two very large trees recently on cemetery property with neither consultation nor permission. When asked about the matter the hotel’s response was, “Well, they were dead.”

The Point Clear Cemetery Association Inc.’s intention is to maintain, celebrate and share the history of the cemetery with the residents of Baldwin County and with visitors to Fairhope and Point Clear on our terms. It is the association’s hope to produce a Christmas book about the cemetery and eventually consider having a small multimedia museum to explain, educate and edify the public about the families of the citizens of Baldwin County who have maintained and used the cemetery over the generations as well as the history of the Confederate Rest portion of the cemetery.

President

Point Clear Cemetery Association Inc.