Adapted from a timeline published on the Highland Lake Inn & Resort Website
hliresort.com/resort/history/

Update: This post was first published in February 2021. Some additional information has been added from Flat Rock Historic District, Boundary Increase, Boundary Decrease, and Additional Documentation Flat Rock, Henderson County, HN1352, Listed with the North Carolina Historic Preservation Office on 2/27/2015 - a fascinating document which you can read here.

1789

Land Grant to John Earle, who established the 1st grist mill (to the right, in front of the waterfall as you enter the property) and opened the first road to the area.

Possibly the first settler in the traditional community of Flat Rock was John Earle. On Aug. 23, 1784, John Earle enters land on the south fork of Green River where “Dellingham’s path crosses to Sauldy.” This reference is to the Saluda Indian Path (along old U.S. 25).

Early pioneer settler John Earle built a grist mill in the community on his land. This land is located today near the Highland Lake. Prior to obtaining land in today’s Henderson County, Earle lived in the Landrum, S.C., area, near the Revolutionary War’s Earle’s Fort. He arrived in the area via another old Indian path, today called the Howard Gap Road.

In 1815, Earle’s widow, Eleanor Earle, conveyed to Robert McAfee 200 acres on the “shoal where John Earle had a mill.” (1)

—

While white, European frontiersmen had forayed into the area to trade, it was not until after the American Revolution that the first settlers owned land in the area of present-day Flat Rock and Henderson County, officially opening the wilderness for development. In 1785, following the Treaty of Hopewell, North Carolina had ceded all western land claimed by the Cherokee Nation, to the federal government. This land was then granted to veterans of the American Revolution as repayment for their service and to encourage settlement. 

These individuals, including Abraham Kuykendall and John Earl, were the first white settlers in the area and, by 1789, a small community had developed around their homesteads, grist mills, sawmills, and taverns. John Earl (1737-1799), who had served with Major Thomas Howard at the Battle of Round Mountain, received his first land grant on November 29, 1790, where he built lumber and grist mills on a shoal that was later dammed to create a pond (present-day Highland Lake).  

Earl went on to open the first road into Flat Rock from the south in 1793, called the Saluda Path.   (Flat Rock Historic District, Boundary Increase, Boundary Decrease, and Additional Documentation - HN1352)

1807

Settlement officially named “Flat Rock.”

The enormous granite outcropping that gives Flat Rock its name was first mentioned by geographers in public records in 1807. But that doesn’t mean that there were no people in the area before that. (3)

Historians wrote of merchants from the seaport of Charles Towne (now Charleston) meeting with Cherokee braves on the "Great Flat Rock" to trade beads and trinkets and sometimes ammunition for valuable hides and furs to ship to European markets. In 1807, the ‘great flat rock" gave its name to the pioneer settlement that was growing up around it. (4)

—

Access to the Flat Rock plateau in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was limited to established Indian paths. Roads from the coast of South Carolina gradually made their way across the interior of the state to the foothills in the first decades of the nineteenth century, with the South Carolina State Road extending from Charleston to Greenville by way of Columbia in 1819. The first of the major roads into North Carolina resulted from the search for more distant trade routes across the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

A path through the lowest gap in the Blue Ridge between Saluda and Tryon had been appropriated by white settlers by the time of the American Revolution. In 1793, John Earl was paid $4,000 to build a road from Landrum, South Carolina, through Saluda Gap to Flat Rock. Completed around 1800, the road, called the Saluda Path, passed Earl’s grist mill in Flat Rock.(HN1352) 

1848

Charles Baring built “Solitude” on a hill overlooking the lake.

In 1848, Charles Baring built his home, Solitude, on the outcrop after his powerhouse wife, Susan, had died. They’d been the leaders of the Charleston migration to Flat Rock, starting in 1827. (5)

Charles Baring built “Solitude” on a hill overlooking the lake. This was sold to George Trenholm, who succeeded Charles G. Memminger as Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederate States of America. (1)

Susan Baring died in 1846 and Baring II married Constance Beatrice Dent a year later and he built another summer home in Flat Rock called Solitude where the Highland Lake Inn now resides. They became full-time residents of Solitude in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War. Charles Baring II died in 1865 and is buried at St. John in the Wilderness church. (11)

—-

Earl’s property was later purchased by Henry McAlpin in the 1830s, and then sold to Charles Baring. Baring sold McAlpin’s home site to Thomas Lowndes, where he built his estate, Dolce Far Niente, and subdivided the land for other summer houses erected between the lake to the east and the present Greenville Highway to the west. 

In 1854, Baring built a two-and-a-half-story frame house that he named Solitude on a hill on the east of the property overlooking the lake. During the 1860s the mill produced corn flour and powered a carder to make grey cloth for the Confederate uniforms. (HN1352)

1872

Sold to George Trenholm, Secretary of Confederate Treasury, who lived there one year and sold it.

Trenholm owned this summer estate only a short while and sold it to William Aiken, a former governor of South Carolina.  (1)

Throughout the first years of the war, Trenholm was a valued adviser to the Confederate secretary of the treasury, Christopher Memminger, a fellow Charlestonian and close friend. When Memminger resigned in June 1864, President Jefferson Davis appointed Trenholm to the post. When Davis and his cabinet fled Richmond in April 1865, Trenholm remained in the city until finally resigning his position on April 27. (13)

1873

The Honorable William Aiken, Jr., the 61st governor of South Carolina and a U.S. congressman purchased all of the acreage that is now Highland Lake in 1873 from George Trenholm.

William Aiken and his wife, Henrietta Lowndes, gifted the land to their only child, Henrietta Aiken Rhett, whose father-in-law, Robert Barnwell Rhett, owned the 19th-century Charleston Mercury and was the author of the first draft of the Ordinance of Secession. The grist mill established by John Earle on the property was renamed Rhett’s Mill and the lake became Rhett’s Pond. (2)

1910

Highland Lake Club – Joseph Holt and a group of Columbia and Charleston, SC, businessmen organized the Highland Lake Club as a corporation.

They bought nearly 500 acres of land in the Flat Rock area and enlarged the lake to the largest in the county at that time. The land of this new corporation was subdivided into large lots which were to be sold for summer homes. An owner of a lot had all the privileges of the lake, such as boating, swimming, and fishing, as well as the privilege of the Highland Lake Club House. It was a big rustic type hotel that had all of the modern conveniences of the day including a large lobby and dance hall, which were to be lighted by electricity- a rare thing in this area in those days.

The Club would furnish hotel accommodations to club members and their guests and serve meals to those members who had built cottages. The Club had its own orchestra that played at mealtimes and for dances. John Ingils (or Ingles), a nationally known golf expert, was brought here to lay out the only 18 hole golf course in the entire mountain area of Western North Carolina at the time and predicted to become the Mecca of golf enthusiasts the world over. Too far ahead of its time, the Club failed after two years.

—

The Rhett property was purchased in 1910 by the Highland Lake Club, a group organized by Joseph Holt and investors from South Carolina. Within a year, the Highland Lake Club built an electrical power house at the base of the dam, completed an eighteen-hole golf course to the north, added two clay tennis courts, and enlarged the lake for boating, fishing and swimming. The group began work on a large clubhouse and counted a great number of Flat Rock estate owners as new members.

Golf was a popular sport in the Flat Rock area with Ellison A. Smyth building a nine-hole course in his pasture at Connemara between 1900 and 1906. An eighteen-hole golf course was built in 1910 as part of the Highland Lake Club.

The large rustic inn served meals and had a large lobby and dance hall. The golf course was built on the north side of present-day North Highland Lake Road. During the off-season, the Fleet School for Boys, a preparatory school, operated in the inn, which burned in 1915.

The old Baring-Trenholm-Rhett House (Solitude) was moved from its original location and served as a temporary clubhouse. A new clubhouse was completed quickly and was described as having a large ballroom, grand dining room, and 340 feet of porches that were fifteen feet wide. Asheville architect Richard Sharp Smith designed the building in a Tudor Revival style. In addition, several picturesque cottages were constructed for members’ use. After two grand seasons, the clubhouse burned and the club ceased use of the property. (HN1352)

For more than fifty years, the railroad served as a lifeline between Hendersonville and Charleston, to the degree that, in 1910, it was considered necessary to have a third station added between the one at Flat Rock and the one at Hendersonville. The club established its own railroad station, called Highland Depot, as an additional stop between Flat Rock and Hendersonville. 

Six passenger trains were going each direction daily prior to the summer season. The new station was built adjacent to the railroad tracks on the Highland Lake Club property at what is now the intersection of Highland Park Road extension and the railroad line (northeast of the historic district). The depot featured a 100-foot-long passenger shed, a modern waiting room, ticket office, and baggage room all with electric lights. Beginning in 1911, the Carolina Special, a Southern Railway passenger line between Cincinnati and Charleston by way of Flat Rock and Hendersonville, occasionally left people behind for lack of space on the coaches. 

1915

Fleet School for Boys, a preparatory school, operated during the fall, winter and spring months. During the summer months, the facility operated as a hotel called Highland Lake Inn. Unfortunately, the original Inn burned, but, you can still see some of the footings.

In 1915 a private school for boys opened on the Highland Lake property. In 1919, the Carolina Military and Naval Academy opened at Highland Lake. The school closed in 1924. The property owners then operated Camp Highland Lake at the property until the late 1940s. There were two other short-lived camps at the property.(1)

1919

The Carolina Military and Naval Academy (under the auspices of the Georgia Military Academy). Just before World War I, Highland Lake Inn and the surrounding property, including the cottages and the lake, was purchased by Colonel J.C. Woodward, who established a school for boys (also known as Camp Highland Lake) that offered a choice of either military or naval training.

Camp Highland Lake was under the direction of Colonel J.C. Woodward until the time of his death in 1939. His son, Major C.D. Woodward, then continued as owner and director of Camp Highland Lake until 1947.

—

During World War I, Colonel John Charles Woodward and his wife relocated from Georgia and purchased much of the property associated with Highland Lake Club and golf course to establish the Carolina Military and Naval Academy for young men. Woodward doubled the size of the Baring-Trenholm-Rhett House to provide dormitory and classroom space for the students and also purchased the rights to the lake for training the young men. 

The academy does not appear to have survived very long, but Col. Woodward continued to run a school for boys, which was called Camp Highland Lake. The Woodwards constructed a new summer house for their use at 534 N. Highland Lake Road, and while Col. Woodward ran the boys’ camp and academy, Mrs. Woodward operated a girls’ summer camp called Gracemont from their home and its outbuildings. Col. Woodward directed Camp Highland Lake until his death in 1939, and it was continued into the 1940s by his son, Maj. C. D. Woodward. 

The twenty-room lodge was a dormitory built for of Camp Highland Lake. In the late twentieth century the lodge was rehabilitated into guest rooms for Highland Lake Inn (HN1352)

1941

Robroy Farquhar opened “The Old Mill Playhouse” in the mill, starring actresses “Kim Hunter” and “Joanne Woodward.” (Later moved and became the Flat Rock Playhouse.)

In 1940 and 1941, the Vagabond Players led by Robroy Farquhar performed in the summers at the site of the old grist mill at Highland Lake. (1)

A cluster of dwellings was built upon the old mill foundation that was used as the Old Mill Playhouse beginning in 1941. (10)

In that summer of 1940, Robroy established the first professional summer stock theater in North Carolina. For two summers, the Old Mill that had once ground grist for pioneer settler and summer residents of “Little Charleston of the Mountains” served as an auditorium - with the cast ignoring the occasional bat swooping overhead during performances. (14)

After World War II, the group opened a playhouse on Lake Summit in Tuxedo. In 1952, the Vagabond Players purchased the Lowndes home in Flat Rock and incorporated as the Vagabond School of Drama. The Flat Rock Playhouse was designated as the State Theater of North Carolina in 1961. (1)

1946

Property was sold to Berryman Longino who ran the “All-American Boys Camp.

1947

Camp Brandeis, a summer camp and school for young people of the Jewish faith.

1950's

Our Lady of the Hill’s Camp, a Catholic camp for boys and girls on Madonna Lake, now Highland Lake.

In late 1955, the Catholic diocese bought the Highland Lake property to be used as a diocesan retreat center and summer camp, Our Lady of the Hills Camp. The camp opened in 1956. It was the first racially integrated camp in the region. In 1978, the Diocese of Charlotte Youth Ministry office relocated to the camp. In 1985 the property was sold and the Highland Lake Inn and Conference Center was established at the former camp location. (1)

---
In the early 1950s the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte bought the camp facility and lake for a boys’ and girls’ summer camp. The camp, called Our Lady of the Hills Camp, constructed cabins and several buildings, as well as remodeling the Baring-Trenholm-Rhett House into a chapel. The lake was renamed Madonna Lake. Our Lady of the Hills Camp operated well into the 1970s, and over the years they rebuilt the original wood dam and eventually demolished both the mill and Baring-Trenholm-Rhett House. (HN1352)

1985

Highland Lake Inn and Conference Center, operated by the Lindsey family.

In 1985, the Lindsey family acquired the property and organized the Highland Lake Inn and Conference Center, remodeling the existing buildings, constructing new buildings, and adding new amenities for visitors to Flat Rock. Portions of the property were also sold off or subdivided for residential development. In 1999, the guest accommodations and facilities were reorganized under new owners as the Highland Lake Inn & Resort. (6)

Kerry Lindsey developed and operated a 200-acre resort/retreat community including 125 seat restaurant, 175 seat banquet facilities, and the first "garden to table" menu in the area. (9)

1999 to Today

Highland Lake Inn & Resort is operated by the Grup family. Today the entire property has been lovingly restored to offer unique and charming dining and lodging experiences. Our award-winning restaurant, Season’s, takes pride in offering fine dining in a casual country setting where seasonal menus are based on the flow of produce from our organic gardens.

References

1. http://hendersonheritage.com/flat-rock-2/ by Jennie Jones

2. https://www.charlestonmercury.com/single-post/2020/06/04/lives-and-locales-bound-by-preservation by Missy Izard Schenck

3. https://www.blueridgenow.com/article/NC/20070527/News/606054553/HT

4. “A Short History of Flat Rock by Louise Bailey” flatrocknc.gov Link

5. Visiting Our Past: Flat Rock’s antebellum Golden Age By Rob Neufeld in the Citizens Times

6. https://historicflatrockinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/HN1352.pdf Page 144

7. https://historicflatrockinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/HN1352.pdf Page 204

8. https://www.hendersonvillelightning.com/life/8372-u-s-geological-survey-officially-names-lake-creek-in-flat-rock.html Hendersonville Lightning “Is this called Highland Lake? Until recently, no”

9. Kerry Lindsey LinkedIn Link https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-lindsey-91804a1b/

10. MillPictures.com https://millpictures.com/mills.php?millid=1706

11. Hendersonville Best  https://hendersonvillebest.com/notable-men-of-henderson-county-charles-baring-ii/

12. FB Hendersonville and Flat Rock: An Intimate Tour  https://www.facebook.com/HendersonvilleFlatRockAnIntimateTour/posts/solitude-the-home-of-charles-baring-and-constance-dent-highland-lake-flat-rock-n/482525775291411/

(13) https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/trenholm-george-alfred/

(14) 50 Years with the Vagabonds by Louise Howe Bailey

(HN1352). NORTH CAROLINA STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE, Office of Archives and History Department of Cultural Resources, NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES, Flat Rock Historic District, Boundary Increase, Boundary Decrease, and Additional Documentation Flat Rock, Henderson County, HN1352, Listed 2/27/2015