Flat Rock Historic District (Boundary Increase, Decrease and Additional Documentation)

Flat Rock is a mountain community in Henderson County, North Carolina, where wealthy families from Charleston and the low country began building summer houses in the early nineteenth century. The district contains large estates set back from narrow, tree-lined roads, usually approached through stone gates or wooden fences. Its buildings range from Federal and Greek Revival houses to Gothic, Stick-style and Second Empire designs. Saluda Cottages, a large Second Empire house with a three-story tower, is described as the most architecturally ambitious building in the community. St. John-in-the-Wilderness, a brick church with a double hammer beam roof, holds the graves of many early prominent families. Charles Baring, an English banker's son, married Susan Heyward, widow of a Charleston planter, about 1798, and his story illustrates the area's early ties to South Carolina society. The district is significant as a record of the scale and quality of life enjoyed by the affluent of the Carolinas in the nineteenth century.