EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

Associated Press Writer

Before the Sun-N-Sand closed in September 2001, the downtown Jackson hotel served as a sort of tacky fraternity house for generations of Mississippi lawmakers.

Now, the state might purchase the shabby landmark and tear it down to make room for new government office buildings.

A bill passed by the Legislature during the 2009 session, and signed by Gov. Haley Barbour, allows the state to buy three pieces of property near the Capitol. Two of them are the Sun-N-Sand and an office building next door to the hotel, known as the Barefield property. These are about a block west of the Capitol.

The other building, a block northeast of the Capitol, was occupied until a few months ago by the law firm where former Gov. William Winter works. The firm, Watkins Ludlam Winter and Stennis, has moved to a shiny new skyscraper in downtown Jackson.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Finance and Administration said this past week that no steps have been taken toward purchasing any of the buildings because there’s no money available now.

Tax records show that the Sun-N-Sand was built in 1959. When it closed 42 years later, the hotel’s decor could still be best described as mid-century tacky. The dining room had turquoise banquettes, and the guest rooms had turquoise or orange curtains.

Many unofficial legislative gatherings took place over the years in the hotel bar, called Ye Olde Sand Box, and in the Pacific-themed hospitality rooms — the Bali Hai, the Kon Tiki and the Polynesian. Sometimes, deals were cut. Sometimes, the hotel was just a place to have cocktails or coffee and exchange gossip.

The current chairman of the Senate Public Property Committee, Democrat Jack Gordon of Okolona, lived at the Sun-N-Sand as a legislative freshman in the early 1970s. He said there was “a real camaraderie” among the hotel’s residents.

“Back in those days, they had a room there that you had telephones in where you could call home at night that the telephone company furnished. And then they had bologna and crackers and cheese and all there for us,” Gordon recalled this year.

Gordon served in the House from 1972-80. He served three terms in the Senate, from 1980-92, before losing a bid for re-election. He returned in 1996, and has been at the Capitol since then.

He said that back in the early ’70s, legislators were paid about $3,000 a session and “we didn’t have but about eight lobbyists.”

“So if it hadn’t been for that room there,” Gordon said, “we’d have starved.”

In its heyday, the Sun-N-Sand was home to about 90 of Mississippi’s 174 lawmakers at one time — more from the House than from the Senate. The cheap rates were a big attraction.

Lawmakers grilled burgers by the pool and had sardine parties and crawfish boils.

Rep. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, lived at the hotel his first 14 years in the Legislature. Even after moving out 1997, Holland continued to eat his morning meal there.

“Everything you ever needed to know about what’s going on, you could find out at the breakfast table,” Holland said at the time the hotel closed in 2001. “Hell, if you didn’t know it, you could start a rumor at 5:30 in the morning. It’d be around the Capitol later that day.”

Jackson-area residents also had fond memories of the Sun-N-Sand. Days after it closed, the owners sold off the furniture, table linens and other accoutrements. Among the bargain hunters was a woman who recalled attending her junior high prom at the Sun-N-Sand in the 1960s, wearing a yellow brocade-and-chiffon dress sewn by her mother.