Cool Place in the Sun

South Shore Harbor $10 million renovation gives new life to grande dame of the Bay Area

It's been 28 years since the South Shore Resort & Conference Center opened its doors and it's been that long since the queen of the Bay Area has received much-needed cosmetic attention. After a nine-month, $10 million renovation and facelift, the aging dowager has been transformed into a waterfront babe.

Galveston-based American National Insurance Company made the commitment to infuse new life into its 237-room property in League City with the project that included a complete cosmetic overhaul as well as all new air-conditioning and mechanical systems, the latter alone costing $3 million.

In advance of Thursday's grand opening, principals in the project invited media for a tour and restaurant sampling. "I've been walking around just grinning from ear to ear," said resort GM Roy Green. "It looks like a brand new property to us. We have regenerated what it once was."

The briefing was held in one of the resort's dreamy two-level penthouses ($900 per night). The penthouse decor and in guest rooms ($189 per night) throughout the hotel embraces a subtle nautical theme. Captain's chairs at desks, drapes striped like the marina's iconic lighthouse, polished stainless steel railings, rope-embellished lamps, tile floors that resemble bleached dock planks, and colors reflecting the blue sky and the white hulls of yachts parked in the marina.

Our favorite spot was the 185-foot, completely renovated pool with its swim-up bar, cabanas and surrounding tropical landscaping. Lush and lavish, the pool set-up is top notch, the perfect complement to the newly-decorated guest rooms.

Green and others involved in the project boasted not only about the fresh, contemporary decor but also about the ample meeting space — 25,000 square feet of conference rooms spread over 20 options. That includes two ballrooms, an 80-seat amphitheater training center, and a handsome, fully paneled board room.

The bonus for resort guests is free access to the adjacent state-of-the-art fitness center and spa (130,000 square feet) and tennis courts. Guests also have access to a neighboring 27-hole golf course.

The resort is only minutes from attractions, including the Kemah Boardwalk and Space Center Houston and is within easy driving distance of Galveston and its myriad attractions.

After a $10 million facelift, South Shore Harbor Resort & Conference Center is ready to run with the big dogs.

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HISTORY CORRECTED

Houston documentary maker helps correct biased Texas historical marker

Photo by Virginia Diaz-Laughlin

Medrano stands in front of the Karankawa marker while filming 'Truly Texas Mexican.'

It's not often that a film has an impact past the box office, but one documentary has helped tell the truth about the Texas Gulf Coast's long-disparaged Karankawa people.

For years, the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas have fought for a corrected Texas Historical Commission marker in Corpus Christi. Houstonian Adán Medrano’s 2021 film, Truly Texas Mexican, helped finalize a push that will lead to a long-due correction on July 25.

The old marker was plainly offensive. Not only did it say the Karankawa people had "gained a reputation for savagery," but it repeated the long-discredited claim that they practiced cannibalism — a contention born out of the colonial need to justify violence against the tribe.

Medrano, a San Antonio native who currently lives in Houston, became part of the fight when he stood in front of the marker and made a direct appeal to correct the sign.

"I call upon the historians who live in Texas to come up and stand up and say, 'Take this down. This is a lie,'" he said during a scene in Truly Texas Mexican.

Two of them heard the call. Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi history professor Dr. Peter Moore and historian Dr. Tim Seiter of the University of Texas at Tyler joined the years-long Indigenous effort following the film's release. Led by the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas, the academics helped research and draft a replacement that honors them as one of Texas' first peoples.

The marker not only replaces racist mythmaking with scholarship and tribal knowledge, it presents the fact that Karankawa descendants aren't a historical footnote but a living community still present in South Texas today.

Medrano's advocacy here continues his work with the T exas Indigenous Food Project, a nonprofit dedicated to celebrating the Indigenous foodways of Texas and the Americas. But in many ways it is a continuation of a career devoted to amplifying voices rarely heard in popular culture. In 1976, he founded San Antonio's CineFestival, now the nation's longest-running Latine film festival.

At 10 am on July 25, representatives of the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas will unveil the corrected marker, joined by Medrano. Visitors can find it at 6001 Ennis Joslin Rd.

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