| Historic Sites in Flat Rock |
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Saluda Cottages is not only beautiful, it is one of our most historic properties. Imagine what it must have been like in 1836, surrounded by extensive acreage, some of which fronted on the old Saluda Path, now part of the Greenville Highway. Built by Count Joseph Marie Gabriel St. Xavier de Choiseul, French consul to Charleston, Saluda Cottages was originally a modest summer house with cottages for servants and outbuildings, as was the custom of the time.
When the Count and his family moved on in 1841 to build another of Flat Rock’s architectural jewels, Saluda Cottages was sold to A. S. Willington of Charleston. He held it until 1850 when he sold to Christopher Gustavus Memminger, first Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederacy, whose home, Rock Hill, sits across Little River Road. Rock Hill is now Connemara, The Carl Sandburg Home National Park. Memminger retained 100 acres, adding them to Rock Hill, and sold the house and remaining acreage to the Rev. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of Charleston. In 1853, Izard Middleton, a rice planter from Charleston and descendant of one of the 1670 land proprietors of South Carolina, purchased the property and lived there during the Civil War. He was one of many Charlestonians who spent the war years in their summer homes in Flat Rock. Financially ruined after the war, as so many rice planters were, he was forced to sell. Saluda Cottages went first to the McLaughlan family and then the Collins family. But in 1887, the property was acquired by owners who would change it forever, giving it the stunning Second French Empire appearance it has today.
The new owners would change the name to San Souci, expand the house, adding an entirely new third floor, a tower, and porte cochere. Their caretaker traveled extensively, some say all over the world, searching for special types of wood for use in banisters, railings and moldings. The house was turned into a stunning summer residence, often the site of outdoor social activities, and balls in the newly added ballroom. The owners were General and Mrs. Rudolph Siegling of Charleston, General Siegling being editor of the Charleston News & Courier, now the Post & Courier. Descendants of the Sieglings still make Flat Rock their home.
In the 1930s, Conrad and Louise Williams Cleveland owned the property, and added a terraced formal garden to the west of the house. It was in 1955 that the Clevelands sold the property to Campbell Boyd, Sr., who changed the name back to Saluda Cottages, and began a long and diligent period of care-taking of this fascinating house, so important to village history. Mr. & Mrs. L. C. Boyd, Jr., are the present owners of Saluda Cottages. Both have alternately served on the board of trustees of Historic Flat Rock, Inc., and Mr. Boyd is a past president of our organization. They are both fine contributors, and life members of Historic Flat Rock, Inc.
Galen Reuther 12/09 |
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