Greylogs: Saving Governor Perry’s Retreat

Benjamin F. Perry, a Unionist appointed governor of South Carolina by President Johnson after the Civil War, built this rustic two-story log house as his mountain retreat just over the state line from Tryon. Its four rooms, seventeen feet square, were separated by large “dogtrot” open breezeways upstairs and on the ground level. Walls of square-hewn logs, some twenty inches wide, were sheathed by clapboards. An early photograph shows the house at its original South Carolina location, roofed with rough shakes typical of Appalachian mountain homes.

Coral Merchant Lowe and Orton Lowe, university professor of literature, saw the old house on a horseback ride in 1922. After Dr. Lowe’s death in 1938, his widow decided to buy and move the structure two miles up to a site they had admired for their retirement home in Gillette Woods. Mrs. Lowe had clapboards stripped off, the breezeways enclosed, and fashionable 1940s steel windows installed. Her taste from living many years in Florida, ran to bright light and primary colors.

Inside she painted all the log walls stark white with vivid trims such as blue and coral, leaving only ceiling beams and stair railings dark brown, and stained the logs outside a light grey. Though enlarged and altered since her time, subsequent owners have maintained the unorthodox spirit of Lowe’s approach to preserving an historic log house.

Photographs by Elaine Pearsons

An original upstairs fireplace with finely crafted capstone and hearth.
Decorative tiles are believed to have been added for Mrs. Lowe.