News

Tickets on sale for Historic Flat Rock's tour of homes

Rutledge Cottage is one four homes on the Historic Home Tour in Flat Rock on Aug. 4.

By Lightning Reports, Published: July 24, 2025

FLAT ROCK — After a seven-year hiatus, Historic Flat Rock Inc. will host a Historic Home Tour 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2, featuring four private homes, all built in the 1800s and all on the National Register of Historic Places.

Tour-goers will be well taken care of from the moment they arrive and step into an air-conditioned van to be driven to each stop. Vans will pick up and drop off tour-goers at Mud Creek Baptist Church, 403 Rutledge Drive.

Featured homes include:

• Dunroy, c1862. The story of Dunroy begins when David Rogerson Williams purchased 97½ acres as a building site for himself and his wife, Catherine (Kate) Boykin Miller, sister of Mary Boykin Chesnut, author of “Diary from Dixie.” The foundation and portions of the main house were built of granite mined from a small quarry to the south of the house. The home, which now sits on 1.24-acre lot, is the centerpiece of the Dunroy on Rutledge subdivision. The present owners have completely restored the estate that includes the original icehouse, well house and servant quarters/guest house.
• Rutledge Cottage and servant/guest house, c1840. One of the most charming homes in Flat Rock, the house was built by Dr. Mitchell Campbell King for his family while he built Glen Roy (now Kenmure Country Club and development). It was known then simply as “The Cottage.” When Glen Roy was completed, King sold the Cottage to Elizabeth and Sarah Pinckney Rutledge, descendants of Andrew Rutledge, 1740 settler of Charleston, and of John Rutledge, the Revolutionary War general from South Carolina. Thereafter, the house was known as Rutledge Cottage.
• Longwood, c1894/98. One of the most unique historic properties in Flat Rock, Longwood was built for Robert M.W. Black and became known as the Black House on Black Road. Covered in pebbledash stucco — one of the few remaining — the tall, intriguing structure has been adapted by the current owners into a fascinating, welcoming home.
• Chanteloup, c1841. Originally called “The Castle,” the home was built by Count Joseph Marie Gabriel St. Xavier de Choiseul, French Consul to Charleston at the time. The grounds were designed by the legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted — designer of Central Park and the Biltmore House gardens, and the house was redesigned by Richard Sharp Smith, supervising architect of Biltmore House and the designer of Henderson County’s 1905 courthouse. Present owners have spent six years refurbishing, restoring, and developing the granite manse and its lovely landscape design.

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Tickets are $50 in advance and $60 on the day of the tour. For tickets call 828-974-4242 or visit www.historicflatrockinc.com. Tickets are also available at the Henderson County Visitors Center and the Wrinkled Egg in Flat Rock.