Coastal Fairhope, Alabama, will soon be home to the world's first Pulitzer Hotel, complete with a lobby Pulitzer Library. The hotel is being built by Mac Pulitzer, the great-grandson of Pulitzer Prize founder Joseph Pulitzer and son of New York Times best-selling author Roxanne Pulitzer.
"I had never heard of Fairhope until I met my wife, Kourtney," Pulitzer said. "Kourtney's extended family is from Fairhope, and she vacationed in Fairhope, swimming in Mobile Bay and roaming the scenic downtown area. My wife and I have visited Fairhope many times, and each time I learned more and more of the incredibly rich literary history in this place which sits on the highest sea cliff from Maine to Mexico."
Fairhope is home to two Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, two Pulitzer Prize nominees, 14 Oscar nominations, six Academy Awards, four New York Times best-selling authors and many other acclaimed authors.
"During the last couple of years I have been looking for the perfect place to open a luxury boutique hotel," Pulitzer said. "About eight months ago Kourtney's uncle, Mike Bernhardt, showed me a parcel of land he was developing right in the heart of the downtown area, and I knew immediately this was the location for what I had in mind."
Fairhope and the surrounding area is or once was home to the following.
- Author and Pulitzer Prize-nominee Winston Groom, whose Forrest Gump was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won six
- Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Bragg and Pulitzer Prize nominee Fannie Flagg, whose Fried Green Tomatoes was nominated for an Academy Award
- W.E.B. Griffin, a New York Times best-selling author with 40 million books in print in 10 different languages
- Andy Andrews, author of best-seller The Butterfly Effect
- Watt Key, author of Alabama Moon, which is soon to be released as a major motion picture
- Jimmy Buffett, New York Times best-selling author, singer, songwriter and composer
- Tom Corcoran, author of The Mango Opera; Sonny Brewer, author of The Poet of Tolstoy Park