islandpacket.com
Did the SEC ever collect that $25,000 from the consent decree rusty signed?
Historic home complete after years of repairs
By JIM FABER
jfaber@islandpacket.com
843-706-8137
Published Thursday, March 15, 2007
One of Bluffton's last ties to its plantation past will reopen after being closed for more than 20 years.
Rose Hill Mansion, in northern Rose Hill Plantation, will be available for public tours by reservation and for private events, said Rusty and Robin White, who have owned the historic home for the past 11 years.
The Whites bought the three-
story, five bedroom house in 1996 and nursed it back to health; a fire in 1987 had gutted most of it. The couple live on the second floor.
Construction on the Gothic
Revival-style mansion began in 1858 by Dr. John and Carolina Kirk, who ran a 2,400-acre plantation in southern Beaufort County. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, due to the efforts of Iva Welton, whose family owned the home at that time.
That was also the last time the mansion was open for public viewing.
The house won't be open for casual visits, but Valerie Klein, event coordinator for the mansion, said there have been talks with tour operators such as Gray Line, the Bluffton Historical Preservation Society and the Coastal Discovery Museum to include it as a stop.
Private tours are also available by reservation; the cost has yet to be determined.
Plenty about the mansion's history would interest visitors. It's one of just a handful of structures that survived the burning of Bluffton by Union troops during the Civil War.
John Kirk's daughter, Emily, designed one of the first secession flags at the home. That flag, a red background with a white star in the middle, flew over Callawassie Island, which also was owned by the Kirk family, when Union troop marched into the area, Robin White said.
Federal troops occupied the house, camped on the grounds and looted, but didn't burn, the home.
"One of the rumors is it looked too much like a church, and that's why they spared us," Robin White said.
John and Caroline Kirk were forced to flee the home during the war. Caroline died in what is now Ridgeland in 1864. John Kirk was able to keep the plantation and home in the family, but didn't have many years to enjoy the house. He died in 1868.
What Union troops left unharmed, a faulty water heater nearly destroyed in 1987. Rusty White said the house was burned so badly that you could see all the way through it and up through the roof.
The house was left damaged until the Whites bought it and started renovations on the 10,000-square-foot house.
"It was utterly uninhabitable, but it looked like there was some possibility there," Robin White said. |
