For more than a century, that white, two-story building located on North McKenzie Street across from Heritage Park has served visitors and those passing through Foley and venturing down Alabama 59 or along U.S. 98.

The building is known as Hotel Magnolia, and there will be a celebration of its time in The Forward City with a 103-year anniversary party on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the hotel.

“We’re going to be serving food. We have some giveaways,” Mary Younce, hotel innkeeper, said. “We’re celebrating basically 100 years of service in Baldwin County.

“The public is welcome. We are inviting the city of Foley.”

There was not a celebration when the hotel turned 100 years old, Younce said. So, this extravaganza will unofficially celebrate a century worth of life in the city of Foley.

The hotel stands as a landmark in Foley, sitting along North McKenzie Street across from Heritage Park.

“I would definitely say it’s a landmark,” Younce, who took over as innkeeper in January 2010, said. “Everybody knows where the Hotel Magnolia is. We get people who love to walk in and see us. It’s full of antiques, and we host weddings, reunions and birthday parties.

“It has to be one of the oldest (buildings).”

The front porch comprises of four chairs with a brick walkway leading to the front door and two lion statues guarding the front porch. The black, wrought iron gate and fences blocking the hotel from the sidewalk include designs of corn, pine cones and watermelons, which Younce said “symbolizes Baldwin County.”

The black-painted border accompanies the white columns in the front and the white-painted staircase on the north side of the building.

Younce said the hotel, which has 10 rooms, is a temporary home to guests from all across the country and even some from across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

“We get them from all over the world. We had a couple from New Zealand, Germany and England,” Younce said. “In the last year, our business is way over what it was before.”

John Burton Foley, a pioneer in the early development of the southern part of Baldwin County, built the hotel in 1908. Foley, who the city is named after, was a Chicago businessman who became a land developer in the area.

“Burton came here and bought 55,000 acres,” Younce said. “Then, the train came down here, and then he built the hotel so people could stay. Then, he sold some property to them.”

After the hotel was built and up-and-running, John Lehr became its first manager. John Snook bought the hotel in 1967 and refurbished the building. The current owner is his wife, Marjorie Snook. She kept the hotel after John died in 1994, Younce said. The couple have their initials engraved into the fence and front gate.

Prior to the hotel’s renovation in 2005, the last guest checked out more than 30 years ago. For almost three decades the building served as a location for meetings and parties and was not used as a hotel.

“It was still used for the community,” Younce said. “Then they finally turned it into a bed and breakfast six years ago.”

The hotel is now a modern-day bed and breakfast, offering its guests the same charm and elegance it had throughout the 20th century and up-to-date comforts and amenities.

The Magnolia Court Restaurant opened two years ago to accompany the hotel, Younce said.

The party will coincide with Uptown Foley’s Community Yard Sale on Saturday from 7 a.m. to noon in the alley behind the hotel.