Overnight rooms are booming in Beaufort. Will they creep into a sacred neighborhood?

The framework for two new hotels is rising on the outskirts of Beaufort.

A downtown inn recently completed a new 12-room cottage and plans a new hotel nearby to accommodate weddings and other large events.

The growth of vacation rentals in the city was recently capped but the model continues to thrive.

The boom of new overnight rooms in Beaufort has been greeted as a welcome investment, but the recent approval of a new bed and breakfast has raised questions about whether the hospitality industry might reach too far in the city’s historic district.

“There seems to be an interest in growth downtown — people seem willing to invest — which is good,” said Josh Gibson, a downtown resident who operates a short-term rental property and is chairman of the city’s zoning board of appeals. “When you’re looking at future growth, you want to keep commercial growth in the commercial district. If everything spills over into the residential area, there are no more residential areas.”

The board approved a request Monday to operate a bed and breakfast in a historic waterfront mansion in the Point, a neighborhood with some of Beaufort’s oldest and most iconic homes. Gibson was the lone dissenting vote.

Investors plan to create 10 rooms inside the century-old building at 607 Bay Street. Business partners Michael Jacejko and Christopher Knox said in a letter to the city they plan to restore the property, “supporting the growing demand for heritage tourism” in the city.

The investors wrote that the building would have little impact on the neighborhood and noted the home is adjacent to a commercial property used as a law office and a block from the city’s key commercial area on Bay Street.

“This treasured, unique residence has sat dormant for over 15 years and is long overdue — and well-poised — for a new chapter,” the letter said.

Restoration would be welcome at the long-vacant home, and adjacent properties have been operated similarly in the past, Historic Beaufort Foundation director Maxine Lutz said. The home next door was once the Bay Street Inn and behind it was the Old Point Inn.

Those adjacent residents spoke in favor of approving the new inn, Lutz said.

Other homes in the Point have historically been guest houses and some divided into apartments, she noted. She encouraged the board to address residents’ specific noise and traffic concerns while supporting the restoration.

The city’s zoning board capped outdoor events at one per month, required on-site parking and subjected the business to the same noise rules as Beaufort’s neighborhoods.

A few dozen people spoke at the meeting on Monday, which stretched two hours, Gibson said. Jacejko and Knox initially said their business model didn’t rely on the number of outdoor events but later asked to be allowed one each week.

Some residents of the Point who opposed the request said they were worried about the decision opening the way for more inns in the neighborhood.

Esther Harnett wrote to neighbors and Mayor Billy Keyserling ahead of the board vote that she lived for decades in Savannah’s historic district and watched hers become an “unlivable neighborhood,” as it became more transient.

“Every large home could be next,” she wrote in an email.

People who live in the Point, which includes well-known homes that go by names like the “Big Chill” house and the “Castle,” foresee tourist traffic during the day but expect quiet after hours, said neighborhood resident and nearby business owner Mike McAlhaney.

Vacation rentals are already barred in the neighborhood, while the rental properties are now capped at 6 percent of residential lots in the city’s other neighborhoods.

McAlhaney said a new bed and breakfast nearby would probably help business at his City Loft Hotel and City Java coffee shop on Carteret Street. But his opposition is as a Craven Street resident, he said.

“I have greater concerns about the commercialization of the Point neighborhood and that creeping in one step at a time,” he said.

This story was originally published December 1, 2017 at 6:12 AM with the headline "Overnight rooms are booming in Beaufort. Will they creep into a sacred neighborhood?."