Behind the Walls on Whiskey:
Historic Rond Point
by Anna Dangerfield
The beautiful estate of Rond Point has graced the corner of Whiskey Road and Coker Springs Road for close to a century.
The home and the extensive grounds have enjoyed an assortment of individuals including local families and those who ran in the equestrian circles and those who were in Aiken for the season. Behind the walls, beauty and security have been found.
Lucy Tower and Eliza, a German shepherd mix, stand at the corner of Whiskey Road and Coker Springs Road.
Early Days
Dr. B.C. McLean built this two-story frame Colonial Revival style home in the 1920s, employing renowned architect Willis Irvin to design the home. He added the wall in 1928 and made further additions in 1929.
When McLean sold the estate to Mrs. Elizabeth C. Beale for $52,500 in 1928, she was a widow. She later married professional landscape architect and Director of the University of Michigan’s Arboretum, Count William Aubrey Tealdi. The couple lived in Italy’s Tuscan Villa Paolina and had a wonderful marriage. She fell ill in the early 1950s and died in 1954. He later married a young woman 60 years his junior with whom he had three children.
The home at Rond Point, built in the 1920s
Isabelle Dodge Sloane
Rond Point’s next owner was Mrs. Margaret Chase Behrend who later sold it to Mrs. Isabelle (Isabel) Dodge Sloane. She was the daughter of John F. Dodge who was the co-founder of the Dodge Brothers Motor Company in Detroit. She was a breeder and owner of Thoroughbred racehorses. Some of her Brookmeade Farm horses trained in Aiken.
One reporter referred to her as “America’s first lady of the turf.” In 1934, it was reported that she became the first woman to lead the American owners’ list when she won the Kentucky Derby with Cavalcade and the Preakness Stakes with High Quest.
It was reported that in 1951, she spoke at the annual testimonial dinner of the Thoroughbred Club of America. “Racing and breeding horses are to me many things,” she told the members. “They are my hobby, my business, my pleasure and almost my entire life.”
The Wymans
In 1956, Dr. and Mrs. Henry Dibble ‘Dibbs’ Wyman purchased Rond Point. Sara and Dibbs and their five children moved from Highland Park Drive to the property of Rond Point, which included more than three acres.
“Mother said they paid about $35,000 to $38,000,” said Sally Wyman Brodie, now the broker at Real Estate One. Sally was seven years old when her family moved to their new home.
“When my grandparents moved in with our family, they lived in the servants’ quarters upstairs at the back of the house,” she continued. “That wing had a kitchen, two bathrooms, and four bedrooms. My siblings and I took turns spending the night with them, and just by closing the door that separated the servants’ wing from the house, we’d be away ‘visiting’ grandmama and grandfather, away from our siblings. Dad built the upstairs screened porch for this separate apartment.”
Friends and other visitors were a constant at the Wymans. “Dad just took people in,” Sally explained. “Some guests were unmarried, pregnant women referred from doctor to doctor, who had moved out of their homes. Cousins also stayed for an extended period, once because they had been injured in a bad car wreck. They moved in with us so Dad and Mom could care for them. We had five upstairs bedrooms and plenty of room for others.”
The Walls Provided Safety
“Dad bought Rond Point for a few different reasons. With five kids, dogs, chickens, and cats, we needed a lot of room,” Sally explained. “But I think he also bought it because it had a brick wall, and he liked fences and walls. As a physician, he saw the sordid side of life in the jails and in the Emergency Room, so I think he wanted to keep us extra safe. Each night, he’d walk to the front gate and close it, and he always carried a gun.
“At the same time,” Sally continued, “Dad felt his hometown was still small and safe and would allow us to walk nearby to school at the old Mead Hall campus on Coker Springs Road, and later to Aiken Elementary School and to the movies downtown on Saturdays.”
Improving the Estate
Dr. Wyman employed a neighbor, Mr. Rhodes, to paint the home numerous times. “Mr. Rhodes painted the house by himself, and since the house was so large, by the time he had completely painted the house and returned to the front, it was time to start all over again. Finally, Dad added siding to the house,” Sally said.
He also added the gazebo on the front lawn, constructing it with pieces of gingerbread work and old columns acquired from Miss Lyllah Wyman’s house on Hood Lane. Her home was demolished to build the federal courthouse, now the Charles E. Simons, Jr. Federal Court House on Park Avenue. The gazebo holds fond memories for Sally and her husband Allen who were married there in 1967.
On the Grounds
The Wyman children played on the expansive grounds dotted with numerous flower beds planted by their grandmother. “We had a gravel driveway which was eventually covered with asphalt where we could ride our bikes,” Sally said. “Eventually, we chipped up the asphalt and replaced it with gravel.”
They also had a bomb shelter. “During the Bay of Pigs invasion in the 1960s, Daddy built a bomb shelter near where the stables are now located. He converted a pre-existing underground wine cellar into the shelter and furnished it with bunk beds, food, and a meter to measure radioactive fallout,” Sally said.
The Wymans sold Rond Point in 1977. The siblings would probably agree that a three-acre yard, a bomb shelter, a pool, walls to climb over and fences to climb under provided them with an impressive place for an enchanted childhood.
The Mystery Behind the Walls
Rond Point changed owners twice more before the current owner became intrigued with the house behind the walls and decided she had to have it.
“I loved it,” Lucy ‘Dede’ Tower said when she first saw Rond Point. “I was drawn to the mystery of the place, an area totally enclosed by a wall with a house hidden from view.
“Nobody I knew had ever been inside,” she added. “I wanted to claim this abandoned and neglected house, and at that time, I had plenty of energy to work on that project.”
Lucy purchased Rond Point after the 2001 terrorist attacks and a few years after her husband, Whitney Tower, died in 1999. At that time, she owned an apartment in New York city, a house in Saratoga Springs, and a cottage on Fairfield Street in Aiken. Later, she sold the New York apartment and the cottage on Fairfield Street, but she kept the house in Saratoga Springs.
Surrounded by History
Lucy was no stranger to the historic houses found in Aiken. “My grandparents, Austin and Helen Niblack, owned Let’s Pretend. They were equestrians and wintered in Aiken,” Lucy said. “I spent numerous spring vacations there at Let’s Pretend.” Her husband was a journalist who reported on Thoroughbred horse racing and was a president of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. His maternal grandmother, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, wife of Harry Payne Whitney, started the Whitney Museum in New York.
Whitney often wrote in Aiken and like much of his family, he lived in Joye Cottage, acquired in the 1880s by his great-grandfather William C. Whitney. The Whitneys were also part of the Winter Colony that was prominent in the development of Aiken.
While Lucy does not dwell in the past, she lives with it every day surrounded by the furnishings of her ancestors s that she moved to Rond Point with her. “Almost everything I have belonged to one family member or another,” Lucy said.
Much of her sporting art once graced the walls of Let’s Pretend and some of her trophies resulted from her grandfather’s successful competition at the Aiken Gun Club. The family pieces lend a measure of contentment because of their familiarity.
Under the Jasmine Bower
“Years of work outdoors to manage the overgrowth revealed architectural secrets of the garden,” Lucy said.
Once uncovered, interesting plants appeared, some planted by a previous owner who was a horticulturist. Wisteria, clematis, roses, gardenias, and azaleas joined to lend pleasant fragrances and color to the yard. She added tea olive hedges and numerous evergreens.
Lucy and Eliza beneath the jasmine bower
While her yard continues to require Lucy’s annual war on wisteria, she views the work as an ongoing pleasure and enjoys the property now that it is more under control.
Nooks providing hideouts for kids, plentiful flower beds, a potting area, and even a hospital for needy plants are found about the yard. “There are so many beautiful details on this property,” Lucy said.
One of her favorite sitting spots is on the porch underneath the jasmine bower where hummingbirds visit and views of the pool are in sight.
Architectural Design
“I have plenty of room on the property, more than two acres, and the property is zoned Residential Stable Zoning, for horses. My friend and architect Martin Buckley drew a design for a four-stall barn. Easy access to the equestrian signal at the corner of Grace Circle and Whiskey Road and easy access to Hitchcock Woods are at the back of the property,” she added.
“Martin also suggested the distinguishing gray color that enhances the architectural details around the front door,” Lucy said. “The door is a beautiful round-arched opening with a carved keystone.”
Numerous architectural features grace the front door of the home
Hitting the Wall
Like other Whiskey Road walls, the one at Rond Point has occasionally been the casualty of wayward cars.
“There have been two since I owned the property,” Lucy said. “I have no hard feelings or hostility toward the drivers. They suffered more than I did, and the damage has always been covered by the driver’s insurance.”
The wall was also hit in 1933 by Aiken’s fire chief. It was also struck once during the time of the Wymans’ residency, when Whiskey Road was the major thoroughfare before the bypass was built.
But Lucy and her dogs feel safe within the walls. “This house feels cozy and comfortable to us,” she said.
Rond Point is one of the few Winter Colony estates currently for sale in Aiken
Anna Dangerfield lives in Aiken and is the proud Grandmother of six Grandsons and one Granddaughter. She enjoys researching and writing about the history of Aiken. Photos including in this article are by Anna Dangerfield.
