Drayton House on the Battery in Charleston, S.C., in 1889.
Drayton House after its extensive renovations in 2025. Keen Eye Marketing
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Although Charleston, S.C., is only about an hour from the Low Country Flooring home base in Pawleys Island, S.C., it takes something extraordinary to lure the crew to the big city for a job, such as a beautiful historic renovation or a previous client who insists they do the work. This home checked both of those boxes: The mansion on Charleston’s famous Battery dates to 1885, and Low Country had worked for the owners on Pawleys Island 25 years earlier.
In fact, Low Country president Kent Rogerson knew the owner, Robert Honeycutt, way back when. “When I first met him, he was just starting his company,” Rogerson says. “He told me he was going to be a millionaire. I said, ‘Go get ’em, boy.’”
The encouragement appears to have worked: Honeycutt is now a manufacturing entrepreneur, and he and his wife, Julie, purchased Drayton House as a weekend home for $7.1 million in 2022.
Extensive renovations on the home began shortly after and were completed in mid-2025. In one half of the house, the original white oak and walnut flooring could be restored. In the other, the heart pine flooring could not—creating an opportunity for something unique. “Kent gave us inspirational images of the things he thought he could pull off, and we have all the confidence in the world in anything Kent takes on,” Honeycutt says.
The inspirational images were of parquet based on flooring in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. In the design process, that pattern became increasingly ornate. The resulting floor is only 748 square feet, but it has 13,650 pieces of wood. Each center of the pattern alone has 55 pieces of wood. Species include curly white oak, ribbon-grade sapele, wenge, maple and walnut.
Although the wood floor milling was excellent, the installation’s precision—without filler—meant four Low Country installers could install only about 130 square feet a day. With a flawless sand job and a proprietary finish process, the floor met the exacting demands of the home’s renovation. “The intricacy of the pattern, the grades of wood … this stuff is absolutely perfect,” Rogerson says.
Just as Honeycutt is always starting a new challenge with a new company, he and Julie are now involved in new real estate projects in Charleston. “Drayton House should be enjoyed by someone spending weeks or months or even full time there,” Honeycutt says, so the historic 11,00-square-foot mansion is now on the market for $28 million.
Keen Eye Marketing
Drayton House's original white oak and walnut flooring before refinishing.
Drayton House's original white oak and walnut flooring after restoration.
