High on a hill on Little River Road in Flat Rock is Saluda Cottages, or “The Wedding Cake House,” as my children named it when they were little. Built in 1836, it was once a simple, two-story home until turn-of-the-century renovations transformed it into a grander home reflecting a French Second Empire-style mansion. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Saluda Cottages sits on more than 20 acres in the heart of Flat Rock.

Count Joseph Marie Gabriel St. Xavier deChoiseul, 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 in Malta until the situation became hopeless and totally adverse to the new order emerging from the French Revolution, leading him to seek 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 Mountain Lodge, their Flat Rock summer home. 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 to take hides and furs from their village to the seaport town of Charleston.

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, the countess, 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 de Choiseul 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, Sarah, 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 America again. He died in Cherbourg, France in 1872.

In 1850, the first secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States of America Christopher G. Memminger purchased Saluda Cottages from Willington for $4,500. Memminger cut off all the land lying south of the main road and added it to his estate, Rock Hill (now Connemara). Within a short time, he sold off the balance including the cottages to the Rev. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of Charleston. In 1853, Saluda Cottages became the property of Ralph Izard Middleton. Prior to the sale to Memminger, the Saluda Cottage property originally comprised 100 acres and had a fountain on the north side of the house. Water was brought from a spring on Rock Hill to the fountain which became of great interest to the boys of the community during the Civil War. By that time, lead had become scarce and ammunition could not be bought for their guns. Delancy Middleton, son of Ralph Izard Middleton, the owner of Saluda Cottages, dug up the pipeline and laboriously cut it into strips which were rolled and divided it into pieces, fashioned into shot and enclosed in homemade cases or cartridges. Delancy gave each of his friends a portion of the stuff as a prized gift.

As a result of the war, the property fell to Northern speculators. After changing hands a few times, the owner of the Charleston News and Courier Gen. Rudolph Siegling purchased the property in 1888 and named it San Souci after the summer palace of Frederick the Great of Prussia. San Souci is the name Siegling gave to multiple family homes including one on Sullivan’s Island that remains in the family today. He added other surrounding and adjacent lands to the property and made dramatic changes to the dwelling house.

He virtually built a new house around the original one by adding a grand third-floor ballroom, a slate mansard roof with metal cresting, a cupola-topped tower, a porte cochere and other elaborate features, essentially creating the French Empire architectural style still featured today. Joseph McCullough served as overseer of the property and traveled around the country at Siegling’s request to find special woods for the ornamental railings and other woodwork used in the remodeling. The big house at Saluda Cottages is said to contain precious wood from all over the world. The 5,000 square foot house with 23 rooms continues to be one of the grandest old homes of Flat Rock, The Little Charleston of the Mountains.

In 1930, Conrad P. Cleveland and his wife, Louise Williams Cleveland of Spartanburg, bought Saluda Cottages and its 120 acres from the Siegling family. Cleveland created the formal garden west of the house in the 1930s. In 1937, he was working in the garden when author of Carolina Gardens visited and noted that “ the present owner is making an attractive terraced formal garden using much native stone for retaining walls … Mr. Cleveland’s intensive work in his terraced flower garden will add color and complete the picture.”

In 1937-38, Cleveland built a chestnut log house just west of Memminger Creek and lived in it during the months the big house was too cold. In 1955, the Clevelands sold the estate to Mr. and Mrs. Campbell Boyd, Sr. but kept the log house, the cook’s house and seven acres. Boyd, a successful Henderson County businessman and car dealer changed the name back to Saluda Cottages and sold off part of the land to create a subdivision named Flat Rock Forest. A path once leading through the grounds was known as the Jerusalem Walk. It led from Ravenswood to the church, St. John in the Wilderness. An early deed had a provision reserving this path for people walking to church. Long since closed, Campbell Boyd, Sr. had hopes of restoring this historic walkway one day.

The Boyds raised their son, Campbell Boyd, Jr. (“Cam”) and his two sisters, Mary Helen and Paula, on the property. In a 2010 Times-News article, Cam Boyd recalls growing up in a historic landmark. “It really felt like we were out in the country back then,” Boyd says. He recalls riding horses around Flat Rock with his two sisters. They often rode as far as Crail Farm and where Kenmure Country Club is now. “My older sister and I had BB guns and we would play cops and robbers trying to get each other thrown off our horses,” Boyd laughs. “It was a lot of fun growing up there.”

The Boyd’s’ closest neighbors, Pulitzer prize-winning author Carl Sandburg and his wife, Lillian, had a donkey that would escape about once a month. “I guess it preferred the company of our horses more than goats,” says Boyd. He would personally return the wayward animal to the Sandburg’s home, Connemara, across Little River Road which was unpaved at the time.

Boyd recalls lots of picnics on the Saluda Cottages grounds as well as riding in their formal Victorian carriage on Sunday afternoons. “One thing that hasn’t changed is the presence of at least one, possibly two friendly female ghosts,” Boyd says. “One is a mistress. You can hear her keys jangling as she locks up the silver,” he continues. The family calls the other ghost “The Perfume Lady,” he says. “You feel a breeze as this lady walks past you and can smell her perfume. It smells like sweet Confederate jasmine.” Cam and his wife Sally, bought Saluda Cottages from his parents in the early 1980s and raised their two children there. The house remained in the Boyd family for more than 50 years.

In December 2010, Robert and Lorraine Harrison of Fletcher purchased Saluda Cottages from the Campbell Boyd family and donated a preservation easement on the 20-acre property to Historic Flat Rock, Inc. For the preservation-minded Harrisons, who renovated a historic home in Asheville, N.C., the decision to protect the land around Saluda Cottages wasn’t difficult. “It seems like a very natural thing to do given the history of Flat Rock and the way the house sits on the property,” said Robert Harrison who owns All Aluminum Company in Asheville. The easement includes a garden area with rock walls, terraces, historic landscaping, an old ice house, a dam and walls from former buildings on the property. The preservation agreement ensures that the land surrounding the home can never be subdivided and no other structures can be built on the land.

After a seven-year hiatus, Historic Flat Rock, Inc. is bringing back its well-known house tour and gala August 1 through 2, 2025. Saluda Cottages will be the setting for the Patron’s Gala and Chanteloup, “The Castle,” is one of the homes on the tour along with Rutledge Cottage and Longwood. More information about the tour and tickets will be available in the coming months.

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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.

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