Feature: Rock-a-bye Rockville

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“This is a departure for us—I’m not sure what shape this story will take, but it won’t be a typical house piece,” my editor prefaced when proposing this article. “All I know is that I found myself in Rockville one day, in the passenger seat of a friend’s car, and was enchanted. It’s so beautiful, so different, I want to know more.” I too, had always been intrigued by what little I knew about Rockville, namely that it was remote, quaint, and charming. So this is where we begin: with an accidental glimpse, a vague assignment, and curiosity. With this I ventured to the end of the road.

And she was right. What you are reading is not an article about architecture or interior design or cool kitchen cabinets, but it is, at its very heart, about home. Home as a place, as the corner of the world that nurtures and comforts us, the hearth and living room, in its broadest sense, that steadies and grounds us. Home is, in whatever shape or size, the space that defines us, a place we honor and respect. And for 174 (give or take a few) lucky residents, home is the quiet old town of Rockville.

Rockville is, indeed, the end of the road. After a long yawn through rural James, Johns, and Wadmalaw islands, Maybank Highway simply halts. With no fanfare or flashing lights, no warning, the pavement ends bluntly, ostensibly because Bohicket Creek insists that it does, but my guess is that the road ends in Rockville because after arriving there, why would anyone want to go anywhere else?

This is a lovely lullaby of a town, with soft edges, if edges at all, and the comfortable, dreamy ambiance of a place where you’d like to curl up and get cozy. There are only two small roads in Rockville, primarily dirt fire lanes weaving among scattered historic houses, and only two commercial properties—“Carroll’s store,” as the old P.M. King’s Store on the main road, purveyor of meat, panty hose, canned goods, and Carroll’s famous hotdogs, is commonly known, and the shrimp dock at Cherry Point, home to the Emilie Ann, once the top producing shrimp boat on the East Coast. There are no condos, no hotels, no B & Bs, no tour buses traipsing through, and no plans or possibilities for future ones, by careful, strict ordinance of the town. Residents are fiercely protective of Rockville and officially incorporated the town in 1996 in order to prevent development and commercialization and in turn safeguard their subdued way of life. “Our goal was straightforward,” says Sandiford Bee, a retired Coast Guard captain and former town mayor, who grew up nearby and has lived in Rockville full-time since 1986. “We wanted to protect property rights and keep things the way they are. Our intention is that Rockville will remain the most beautiful spot on the Eastern seaboard.”

Officially established in 1784, Rockville’s long history stretches back to 1666, when Lt. Col. Robert Sandford was dispatched by the Lords Proprietors to scout the coast, and landed on “the Rocks” where he claimed possession “by turf and twig” for the Crown. By the early 1700s, Wadmalaw plantation families, plagued by disease, sought the health benefits of high land on saltwater and started building summer homes along the waterfront. Rockville, named for iron ore outcroppings at the water’s edge, began to take its hodgepodge shape. Today the town retains the unpolished patina of days gone by; most homes are a bit weathered and droopy, and yards with old growth camellia, wild cherries, magnolia, and hovering oaks are left more natural than manicured. What you see here is what you get: there’s no effort to whitewash genuine beauty or facelift well-earned wrinkles. These gracious frame houses with tabby foundations and wide porches were never intended to be elaborate or ornate. They were respite, and they still are.

The community nestled here between Adams Creek and Breakfast Creek is close-knit, and neighbors not only know and look out for each other, many are related in some way or another. Old family names have become as intertwined as the moss tangled in the trees: Wilson, Jenkins, LaRoche, Bailey, Seabrook, Sosnowski among them. Over generations, many of the houses have changed hands within these clans, so a title search resembles a genealogy. The oldest house in the town, the 1784 Micah Jenkins House, originally a plantation house, has been a school, the steamboat ticket office, and home to about every family name in the community at one time, reports Bee, who lives next door in the house where his mother was born and that his great-grandfather bought in 1899.

Riley Bradham grew up in Rockville and affirms that it was an ideal place for roaming, exploring, and simply being a kid. “Everybody looked out for you. We could pit stop at anybody’s house and get a drink of water, a Band-Aid, or whatever we needed,” says Bradham, who served as Rockville Councilman under former Mayor Bee, taking the oath of office standing on the Old Stone Bench by the waterfront, thought to be the former front stair of one of the first houses. “There’s wonderful camaraderie among families here,” Bee adds. “Things haven’t changed much. There may be more residents now who are not from here, but that only adds to the charm. We all share a desire to preserve what is uniquely Rockville.”

Of course, the annual Rockville Regatta defines “uniquely Rockville.” Hosted by the venerable Sea Island Yacht Club, the regatta today is best known as a raucous floating party and the social event of the Lowcountry sailing season. But it is also an ode to Rockville’s maritime heritage and a continuation of tradition dating back to the Native Americans who raced on Bohicket’s deep water. A well-attended sailboat race was documented in 1824, and residents officially inaugurated the Rockville Regatta in 1890. Along with the yacht club (which, Bradham recalls, used to stay unlocked), Rockville’s two small churches—Grace Chapel, built in 1840 as a chapel-of-ease for St. John’s parish, and Rockville Presbyterian Church, circa 1837—are the main non-residential buildings in town. “I don’t know of any other community of under 200 people with two churches and a yacht club,” boasts Bee.

Despite the rowdy surge of people and boats during the regatta, the real Rockville covets its low-key quaintness. Which is not to say this is a sleepy town; on the contrary, Rockville and its residents are wide awake, ever vigilant as stewards of simplicity and serenity. In an area under immense development pressure, Rockville is a haven. Despite peeling paint here and there, the community has rallied to conserve a way of life, and that is home maintenance at its best.