A TALE OF THREE HISTORIC HOMES (Cheri)

I love checking out names for the "dots" that I see on the atlases as we travel.

The "dots" are usually crossroads that used to be centers of communities, but are now usually just a handful of homes and maybe a business.

While in the Westminster, SC area last weekend, we stayed in the nearby area which is still more than a "dot," locally called "Retreat." 

The older version of the name was more colorful.  The man that owned one of the first homes in the area - in the late 1700's and early 1800's - had 14 children, nine of them sons.  Two sons never married, and two took unusually long times to marry, thus the name "Bachelors' Retreat."

We stayed in a VRBO cabin associated with one of the earliest, and probably grandest homes in the area, which was built in the mid-1800's.  That home is pictured above, and I'll talk about it more below.

This is the lovely cabin that we stayed in, which was the caretaker's home "back when:"

Image Credit:  Ken / Durema Berry?

Mark and I were intrigued by the cabin.  We knew that it had been carefully renovated, and immediately began speculating about what was original and which aged materials had been brought in from elsewhere.  (You may recall my fixation on architectural salvage.)  ​All of the floors, walls and ceilings are antique heart pine, and the cabinets which the owners added are Amish-built.

You wouldn't believe the number of pictures we took of this bathroom door!

Both of Mark's grandfathers worked in the lumber business, and his father's father operated a sawmill, so we were entranced by the marks of the hand-operated saws used in creating it.

I particularly appreciated the restaurant-grade stove in the small kitchen.  There must be a story behind its choice, but I forgot to ask.

In any case, there's a reason why this cabin, and the main house, have been so beautifully recreated.  They are owned by Ken and Durema Berry.  Ken is the owner of The Berry Group, a luxury homebuilder based in Six Mile, SC, and he is responsible for the work.

The night before we left, Durema gave me a tour of their house, pointing out how materials that they had pulled from the property and salvaged from other historic properties had been evenly distributed throughout the finished work, making the old and new areas indistinguishable.  (There are a number of pictures on the company's website.)  I was in thrall!

One of the original details that is still in place - on either side of the original front doors - is the set of metal brackets which were used during the Civil War to keep those doors from being pushed open by Union soldiers.

While I toured the house, Mark talked with Ken about Hurricane Helene, and the weeks that Ken spent using his heavy equipment to clear debris . . . sobering conversation.

The Berrys have a large portion of the original McWhorter property in the Retreat, including the area's original post office:

The inside of the cottage was so "homey."  The upstairs made me feel like I was at grandma's house.

That bed was so tall that there was a set of stairs to climb into it!

As soon as we walked into the cottage, we saw this:

When Mark and I were in high school, the choir I was in sang this blessing  just before we all left church each week; such a happy memory.

Durema's mother stitched that, as well as this lovely piece:

A couple more outbuildings from the property:

If we go back to the Westminster/Seneca area, we will definitely stay at the cabin again.  If you want to, you can find it on VRBO at https://www.vrbo.com/1162164.

We had gone to Westminster last year to see a museum recalling the drug store and the general store that the grandfathers of a friend of mine ran last century, but we didn't arrive during its open hours.  This trip was made so that we could actually see the museum, and I'll be blogging about that soon.

My friend told me that one set of grandparents' home was on Retreat Street (confusingly, not in the "Retreat" area).  After numerous calls, she found the address for that property.  Coincidentally that property is for sale now, so we were able to see many pictures of the inside and outside.  It too, is historic, but "new" by comparison:  a Craftsman built in 1920.

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