Remembering the Legacy of Local African American Entrepreneurs During Segregation: The Story of the Magnolia Beach Club

The Grand Strand, a well-known vacation spot, was once inaccessible to African American travelers due to segregation. In the 1930s, African American entrepreneurs started to change this, creating vacation spots with beautiful beaches, good food, and live music.

One of these was the Magnolia Beach Club, south of Myrtle Beach. It was started by Lillian Golden Pyatt, a single Black woman who wanted to create a resort for African Americans. She got the idea when she inherited oceanfront property from a relative, James Smalls. Despite nearly losing the property to unpaid taxes, Pyatt managed to keep it and saw its potential.

However, there was a problem: there was no direct access from the new Highway 17 to the resort. Pyatt found out that the property in between was inherited by an African American woman and her sisters. This woman, Elizabeth “Miss Liz” McKenzie and her husband, Frank, bought her siblings' shares and partnered with Pyatt and Dr. Ulysses Teel, who invested more money. The McKenzies agreed to live on the property and manage the resort while Pyatt went back to New York to earn more money for their project.

The construction of the Magnolia Beach Club, funded by Pyatt, started in 1936. Over the next few years, the resort was built, with a 24-unit hotel, a dining room, a pavilion, and fifteen cabins. The pavilion hosted musicians like Ray Charles and Lena Horne, who Pyatt would book while in New York or arrange while they were performing at the Grand Strand.

Sadly, the Magnolia Beach Club was destroyed by Hurricane Hazel, a Category 4 storm, on October 15th, 1954. The damage was so bad that the federal government wouldn’t allow the bridge to the club to be rebuilt. The costs to fix the remaining structures were too high, so it was not possible to rebuild. As a result, Pyatt and the McKenzies ended their partnership and the Magnolia Beach Club closed. Despite this, the legacy of the Magnolia Beach Club and the entrepreneurial spirit of African American business owners like Pyatt and the McKenzies is an important part of the history of the Grand Strand.

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