Middleton Place's Rice Mill--Once a Tea Room Managed by a Summerville Matron and the Digs for a Famous Southern Chef

Halcyon Place was the name of a Southern Style house on South Main Street owned by Mr. and Mrs. George S. Weed at this pivotal time in Summerville's history. It would become the Halcyon Inn during the town's Golden Age.

The inn was not known for accommodating famous guests like the Pine Forest and Carolina Inns, at least I am not aware of any. Framed by the property's groves of magnolias and oaks, its sprawling two-story white-columned porch was a welcoming reminder of space and calmness for its seasonal patrons. A strategically placed joggling board offered an amusing session of relaxing contemplation. If the moment was right and the sojourner willing, the inn's host would retell the endearing story of the fateful circumstances that brought the wooden apparatus to the house.

Mrs. Caroline Parameter, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Weed, was well known for her delicious entrees. Mrs. Parameter also showcased her culinary expertise at the springtime Tea Room on Middleton Place for the Junior League of Charleston during the late 1920s. The Tea Room was the first of the Junior League's fundraising enterprises.

Middleton's rice mill, situated next to the butterfly lakes and the rice mill pond, underwent weighty alterations during its transformation into the "tea room." The revamped two-story building, topped with a mansard roof, offered a tranquil setting for sipping locally grown Southern tea and sharing meaningful Lowcountry conversation. In its second-floor kitchen, League volunteers prepared okra soup and made sandwiches that they served to guests seated at tables overlooking the Ashley River. The first-floor eating area, adorned by a fireplace and andirons, was outfitted with a dumbwaiter the staff used to transfer food from the kitchen.

The Tea Room remained in the Rice Mill until 1949 when it was moved to a new location and became the Middleton Place Restaurant. It was converted to a museum in 1956, featuring a spinning wheel and "Brown Bess" over the fireplace.

The Restaurant building was designed by W. Bancel LaFarge in 1933, based on research done in Barbados, and has the same roof lines as the Rice Mill. Originally used as a guest house, it had two bedrooms and a sitting room upstairs. The cypress-paneled room downstairs was a living and game room surrounded by a screened porch. The Cypress Room, now used as a private dining room, was originally a series of storerooms leading to the plantation office.

In 1985, the owners of Middleton Place persuaded Edna Lewis, one of the country's ten most influential women in the food industry and one of the founders of Cafe Nicholson on Manhattan's East Side, to join them with a goal to inspire a menu based on historical records of early Carolina plantation cooking. She took up residence in the Rice Mill and became their head chef and consultant.

Many ideas for Edna's menu came from a book called "The Carolina Housewife" published in 1847 by Sara Rutledge, a cousin of the Middletons. Although the recipes in the book are incomplete by today's standards, Lewis drew the essentials from them and developed dishes that the well-to-do Middletons might have eaten. Dishes like panned quail with julienne of country ham and spoon bread, rabbit pate, broiled oysters on the half shell with buttered crumbs, pan-fried flounder, watercress soup, grits, shrimp paste, whole strawberry preserves, chocolate souffle, and caramel layer cake.

There are two choices for seating at the restaurant, the dining room or the garden. The view from the dining room is stunning. Lined with large windows, it overlooks the old rice mill pond and picturesque Azalea Hillside. If available, the garden seating offers an intimate, quiet space with a view of the spacious field in front of the South Flanker.

Enclosed by a three-foot brick wall and draped overhead by Spanish moss, a variety of potted plants accented the space--a perfect setting for sipping on an afternoon sweet tea, or if you are feeling a little more fruity, a glass of wine.

Despite the varied menu, I kept it simple and chose the special of the day, a roast turkey sandwich topped with green fried tomatoes and field greens picked from their on-site garden partnered with a side of French fries--sublime.

The casual lunch was sufficient. I was at Middleton Place for its historic surroundings and the garden atmosphere offered by its restaurant. With the warm Charleston sun shining overhead, the setting was perfect for basking in the aura of an antique building and savoring a delicious meal under the shadowy canopy of an ancient oak tree.

In the distance, basking in the soft rays of the Lowcountry sun on the other side of Rice Mill Pond, stood the old brick building that was a rice mill, a tea room managed by a Summerville matron, a museum, and the digs for a famous Southern chef. The halcyon scene was picture-perfect.