Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site - The Memminger Years

The Memminger Years

In the middle 1830s Christopher Memminger, of Charleston, South Carolina, took a tour of Flat Rock in an attempt to find a summer home. Unable to find a home he liked, he purchased land from Charles Baring, one of the more prominent land holders in the area. In 1838 he hired an architect to begin work on a large summer home in the Greek-Revival-style. The kitchen house and stable were actually completed first in the summer of 1838. The house was not complete until 1839. A cook’s house was added in 1841, a wagon shed in 1843, and an icehouse in 1845. An addition to the main house was constructed over the course of 1846-1849, and servant quarters were built in 1850.

Memminger called his summer home “Rock Hill,” possibly because the main house was constructed on the gradual slope of Big Glassy Mountain. In 1855, he had a stream in front of the house dammed up to create a small, artificial lake. The Memminger family spent most of their summers after 1839 at Rock Hill, not to be confused with Rock Hill, South Carolina. They lived there full time from 1864 until the end of the Civil War. During the war, the house was fortified and used as a shelter for friends who needed protection from raids by Union soldiers and Confederate deserters turned bandits.