Highlands Inn history

Highland wth the county seat at Bell's Place (now Monterey) was formed on March 19, 1847, largely through the efforts of Colonel Andrew H. Byrd.

1872 Sold to George Trenholm, Secretary of Confederate Treasury, who lived there one year and sold it.

1873 The Honorable William Aiken – Governor of South Carolina, purchased the property.

They arrived at the site of their new town on February 1875, purchased 839 acres and began development and promotion of the area.

Joseph Halleck built Highlands Inn in 1880 as the first hotel in Highlands, known as Highlands House.

In 1903, a modest boom time for Highland County, a local businessman saw the need for a first-class hotel in Highland County.

1910 Highland Lake Club – Joseph Holt and a group of Columbia and Charleston, SC, businessmen organized the Highland Lake Club as a corporation.

1915 Fleet School for Boys, a preparatory school, operated during the fall, winter and spring months.

The charmingly retro inn opened in 1917 and rented “cabins in the Monterey pine forest.” At the time, owner J. Frank Devendorf told the Monterey Herald that his inn “combined the rustic qualities of its setting, yet offered travelers all the luxury that the progress of the new century could offer.”

The Inn became known as Highlands Inn around 1925 after Frank Cook purchased it.

Camp Highland Lake was under the direction of Colonel J.C. Woodward until the time of his death in 1939.

1941 Robroy Farquhar opened “The Old Mill Playhouse” in the mill, starring actresses “Kim Hunter” and “Joanne Woodward.” (Later moved and became the Flat Rock Playhouse.)

1946 Property sold to Berryman Longino who ran the “All American Boys Camp.

His son, Major C.D. Woodward, then continued as owner and director of Camp Highland Lake until 1947.

1950's Our Lady of the Hill’s Camp, a Catholic camp for boys and girls on Madonna Lake, now Highland Lake.

Miss Helen Major, a Canadian by birth, bought the Inn in 1969.

Sometime in the 1970’s the inn was renovated and enlarged on the back to create fourteen more rooms.

In 1983, Grace Newman founded The Highlands Inn, with the dream of creating an Inn exclusively for lesbians.

Since 1985 The Highlands Inn has hosted hundreds of commitment ceremonies, civil unions, and legal marriages.

In 1989 Rip and Pat Benton bought the inn.

In 1991 the Highlands Inn was listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

After various ownerships and several expansions, the 48-room hotel became a Hyatt property in 1995.

1999 Highland Lake Inn & Resort is purchased by the Grup family.

In the year 2000 Sabrina and Bill Hawkins,? bought the Highlands Inn.

In 2005 Highlands Inn celebrated its 125th anniversary with a gala fundraiser for the Highlands Historical Society.

In the winter of 2006, the stage was removed from the theater room and the space was beautifully renovated to become The Sequoah Room, Highlands’ premier banquet, and meeting space.

The project is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2016.

The Highland Center © 2018