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.

Tranquil Halcyon Inn--An Enduring Icon Of Summerville's Prosperous Golden Age

Halcyon is likely not a commonly recognizable word by the average, everyday person unless you are of Greek decent or a student of Greek mythology. And may I add to this short list of the privileged few, the older residents of Summerville and the few observant Summervillians who have seen it while driving along S. Main Street.

To the Greeks, the Alkyonides Meres(Halcyon Days in English) is a name used to describe a two week period of warm and calm weather that generally occurs around the winter solstice, though not exclusively. They can also occur in February.

To a student of Greek mythology, the mythical explanation for the sunny days of calm seas and winds that appear every year between mid January and mid February in Greece is found in the story of the goddess Halcyon(Alcyone in Greek) and her mortal husband, King Ceyx of Thessaly. Their story is one of love, commitment, and death, but to make a long story short, ends with them being transformed into seabirds(many myths say Kingfisher birds) to be together forever. So her eggs can survive during the harsh winter weather, Zeus gave her 14 days of good and calm weather--thus the birth of the Halcyon Days. The term has come to signify prosperity, joy, liberation and, of course, calm.

To the older residents of Summerville, the word Halcyon is remembered as the name of one of the grand resort inns that served the town during its most prosperous days called the Golden Age. If you are a Summervillian who has traveled up and down Highway 17-A while going about your everyday business, you likely have driven past Halcyon Place many times. Perhaps, you casually observed the street sign bearing its name, but were unaware of the unique history hidden beyond the tall trees, the white pillars and black gates.

The exact construction date of the house that eventually became known as Halcyon Place is unknown. The Colleton County records, the properties original county, were lost when Sherman's troops burned Columbia in 1865. The earliest surviving reference to the property indicates the house was built between 1830 and 1840 and was called Duke's house--the original owner being John R. Duke. It was built in the classic Southern style. A 12 x 50 foot spacious two-story columned porch greeted you on arrival. On the porch was a joggling board--one of its owners tells a story of acquiring the joggling board she felt completed the porch.

Inside, the first floor featured a 33 x 20 foot living room with 13 foot ceilings, a spacious 26 x 20 dining room, two large dens, a bedroom and stairs leading to the second floor. The second floor contained four bedrooms and a hall. The most unusual second floor feature was a door that led to nowhere, no stairs, no landing and no indication anything was ever there except empty space. Mrs. Dion, one of its owners, jokingly referred to it as the door for invisible inhabitants.

A 1909 plat of the property shows Halcyon Place covered eight acres, which included a pear orchard. Aside from the house, on the grounds were some old outbuildings, service buildings, servants quarters and a gazebo. It was these buildings that were turned into guest houses when Halcyon Place served as an exclusive resort inn under the ownership of the Weeds. One of the guest houses was called "Magruder's House." It was named after a slave that lived there until the 1930's. Another, called the "Pink Cottage", was a former stable and still had the barn doors to prove it. Located in a garden with a bricked-in spring, the octagonal gazebo was considered a historic landmark.

Halcyon Inn is not known for accommodating any famous guests like the Pine Forest Inn and Carolina Inn--at least none I am aware of. Mrs. Caroline Parameter, daughter of Mrs. Weed, was well known for her delicious menus--at one time she ran the Tea Room at Middleton Place. To its Northern visitors, Halcyon Inn was an oasis of tranquility and calm, a safe haven away from the rough waters of life and harsh winters--many of them staying a whole season spanning from late October to April.

Today, it remains a picture of resilience and serenity with its beautifully landscaped grounds, safely tucked away under the properties old oaks and beyond its large black gates. Appropriately named and forever immortalized in the historic writings of Summerville's more prominent residents, it is a reminder of the town's "halcyon days" and a surviving icon of the Golden Age.

New York Yankee left fielder, Brett Gardner, purchased 100 Halcyon in 2011.