Historic Flat Rock Tour returns, Part II
- cdavis884
- Jul 2
- 7 min read
By Missy Craver Izard
Historic Flat Rock’s House Tour returns
After a seven year hiatus, Historic Flat Rock, Inc. is bringing back its well- known house tour on August 2. Always a highlight of the Flat Rock summer season, the return of the Historic Flat Rock tour is a happening you do not wish to miss.
Historic Flat Rock will have four homes/historical sites on tour this year: Chanteloup, Rutledge Cottage, Dunroy, Longwood and the Church of St. John in the Wilderness. Three of the homes are under new ownership and have been recently restored. All sites offer a view into the historic founding of Flat Rock and the generations of tradition restored in them.
In the June Mercury article about the tour, I covered the history of Historic Flat Rock and the following tour sites: Dunroy, Rutledge Cottage and St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church. Part two of the tour highlights includes a history of the other two properties on the tour — Chanteloupe and Longwood. Longwood has never been on tour and offers a rare treat for all. Recently restored by Joy and Eric Rutherfurd, this house was built by the Rev. Robert M.W. Black and his wife around 1898 and passed through four other families before the Rutherfurds purchased it in 2021.
Longwood
Also known as “The Black House” according to the National Register of Historic Places, it is believed that an earlier structure may have been remodeled into the present house form, but this has not been verified.
The property containing Longwood was once part of Charles Baring’s Mountain Lodge estate, but following the death of Mountain Lodge’s subsequent owner, Edward Trenholm of Charleston, a portion of the property was acquired in 1896 by Louis G. Trenholm, one of Edward Trenholm’s children. Louis Trenholm sold his property, approximately seventy-eight acres, in 1898 to the Young family, who in turn sold 22 acres of it to the Rev. Robert M.W. Black and his wife, Clara, of Long Island, New York. The Blacks built the house soon thereafter and then divided their time between Flat Rock and rectorships at Zion Church in Douglaston, New York; St. Batholomew’s in Brooklyn, New York; and Grace Church in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1919, the Blacks sold the house to Cornelia Tucker of Charleston who transferred it to another Charlestonian, J. Chapman Huger, in 1924. The property has passed through various owners, including Mr. and Mrs. Park Paxton who rehabilitated the house in the 1980s. Dr. and Mrs. James Horwitz bought Longwood as a year round residence in 1997 and sold it to the Rutherfurds in 2021.
An imposing two-story hip-roof dwelling, Longwood is covered with pebbledash stucco, and sits on a raised brick basement. This 4,215 square foot, three story home has 12-foot ceilings, native granite fireplaces, original transom windows and heart pine floors. Outside are tiered Pennsylvania Bluestone entry steps with a custom wrought iron railing and a single leaf glazed and paneled door topped by a transom with tracery pattern muntins. There is an exterior chimney that rises against the northwest side of the house and is constructed of cut stone blocks on the first story and brick above, with a corbelled cap. The attached two-tiered hip-roof porch carries across the full width of the façade on the first story and has a second-story central bay.
Chanteloup
Count Joseph Marie Gabriel St. Xavier deChoiseul, a cousin of France’s King Louis Philippe, who reigned from 1816-48, stands high on the roster of early Flat Rock residents. The count defended his country’s interests on Malta until the situation became hopeless and totally adverse to the new order emerging from the French Revolution, he sought refuge in England. While there he became associated with the banking family of the Barings. Since Charles Baring represented the firm’s interests in Charleston, South Carolina, the count came to Charleston and obtained the position as France’s counsel to the port city and at times similar duties in Savannah, Georgia.
In the summer of 1836 the deChoiseuls visited Susan and Charles Baring at their Flat Rock summer home, Mountain Lodge. With both the climate and countryside of Flat Rock, the deChoiseuls were so pleased that they purchased 205 acres on the waters of Mud Creek from the Barings for $410. They built a modest house with two small cottages to the south for servants and groundskeepers. It was named Saluda Cottages as one side of the property bordered the Saluda Path, used for many years by the Cherokee taking hides and furs from their village to the seaport town of Charleston, S.C.
While the count and his family were in residence at Saluda Cottages, they began work on a more elaborate house on property they also acquired from Charles Baring. They called this house “The Castle” now known as Chanteloup. When finished, it became the year-round residence of the deChoiseul family for more than 20 years while the count traveled to and from Charleston and Savannah as his duties required.
Very little information or personal history is known of the count and his family. His wife, Sarah, arrived in America with three daughters, Alix, Eliza and Beatrix along with one son, Charles. Alix returned to France and daughters, Eliza and Beatrix remained in Flat Rock until atrocities of the Civil War drove them to Greenville, S.C. Beatrix eventually returned to Flat Rock and Eliza lived out her life in Greenville. Both sisters, their brother and mother are all buried in the cemetery of St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock where they attended services regularly and Beatrix served as the organist. Son, Charles, became an American citizen and is credited with laying out the streets of Hendersonville and later moving to New Orleans to practice law. At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the Confederate forces and was killed while fighting in Virginia. A French flag presented to St. John in the Wilderness by the government of France stands in his memory in the Tower entrance of the church. The count’s second son succeeded to the title of Marquis deChoiseul in France.
It is odd that a man of the count’s position bears only brief mention in the archives of historical societies in Charleston and in Flat Rock’s early settlers. In 1841, the deChoiseuls moved to The Castle and sold Saluda Cottages to A.S. Willington, editor of the Charleston News and Courier. It is not clear whether Willington received Saluda Cottages in settlement of debt owed him by deChoiseul who was considered at the time to be without moral scruples concerning monetary affairs. The countess died in 1859 at the age of 61 under mysterious circumstances. Many historians believe she and the count got into an argument at The Castle and she was pushed off a balcony falling to her death. Some believed she died of an illness, but there are no facts as to how she died. Despondent over the death of his wife and son, the count left Charleston in 1862 and returned to France never to visit the United States again. He died in Cherbourg, France in 1872.
Chanteloup has known almost two centuries of ownership beginning with the count and his wife 1836 to 1858. From 1858 to 1898, Colonel Robert David Urquhar owned it; followed by Lucie and Martha A. Norton (1898-1917) who renamed the estate Woodnorton. It was the renovation of the house for Lucie and Mattie Norton, daughters of Louisville, Kentucky banker G.W. Norton that gave the house its present character. With extensive landscaping by Olmsted & Sons and elegant renovations of the house by architect, Richard Sharp Smith, the estate more than doubled in size and added such modern conveniences as indoor plumbing, central heating, and electricity. The design of Chanteloup as realized by Olmsted and Smith represented a remarkable integration of landscape and architecture. The only real notable feature of the place was its massive stone construction. In terms of style, it was a rather odd combination of generally Italianate and Greek Revival details applied to a conventional center hall plan. Smith’s renovation extended matching wings to the north and south of the house, which were constructed of the same rough quarried granite as the original structure. The elegant Doric order porches smoothed over various peculiarities of the original design and knit the entire structure, old and new, into a formally coherent whole. More importantly, the porches joined the house to the terrace garden which Olmsted envisioned. An important aspect of Olmsted’s design was the relocation of the main entrance drive from the west to the east side of the house. The purpose of this was to dramatize his garden design. Even before its completion, Chanteloup began to have an effect on other Flat Rock Estates. Several other homeowners sought out Olmsted and Smith for the landscaping and renovations of their estates.
From 1917 to 1924, Mary Whitehead Parsons owned Chanteloup and renamed the estate Parsons Fields. William D. and Nina McAdoo owned it from 1924-33 and appear to have lost it during the Depression when it was purchased by George W. and Ruth Hundley of Durham, North Carolina. McAdoo is sometimes credited with giving the name Chanteloup, meaning “song of the wolf” in French, to the place; nonetheless, the name of the estate first appears in a 1966 deed between the Hundley heirs. Lottie Hundley Fortescue and her husband William Fortescue, Jr. owned the property from 1941- 1993. During the latter years of the Fortescue ownership, the property was held in bankruptcy court until Historic Flat Rock, Inc. purchased it in 1993. Historic Flat Rock sold the property to Leonard V. and Linda M Oliphant in 1995.
The Oliphants spent several years restoring Chanteloup with historical integrity in mind. Exceptional features of this nearly 10,000-square foot aerie include 15-foot ceilings, a floating staircase in the entry hall, pocket doors, a grand salon and library. The unfinished attic was floored with boards hewn from a huge pine tree on the property and 11 of the 13 original fireplaces remain. “We took a 19th-century house and made it comfortable for contemporary living,” says Leonard Oliphant.
Sadly in the latter years of the Oliphant ownership, the house was auctioned off on the court house steps where Historic Flat Rock, Inc. once again retained ownership of Chanteloup. Chanteloupe sold to Tim and Tiffany Carroll in 2019 and the couple have spent the last six years totally refurbishing the property, including the Olmsted designed gardens added to the property by former owners, Lucie and Martha Norton. Chanteloup has not been open to the public since 2002 and is an exciting addition to this tour.
House Tour Information
The homes are not handicapped accessible. The tour committee requests no strollers and no interior photography, suggests wearing flat-heeled shoes and beginning the tour no later than 1 p.m. so that participants may view all of the properties.
For house tour tickets and further information, visit their www.historicflatrockinc.com; to reach HFR’s office, call (828) 974-4242 or email them at historicflatrockinc@gmail.com. Historic Flat Rock, Inc. is a non-profit organization. All proceeds will benefit further historic preservation in Flat Rock.
Missy Craver Izard was born and raised in Charleston, S.C. and resides in Flat Rock, N.C. A retired Summer Camp Director and art teacher, Missy is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, journalist, community leader, and the recipient of several awards including the White House Champions of Change.
