When Bonclarken wasn't Bonclarken

Heidelberg, now Bonclarken

Bonclarken on Highland Lake was first named Heidelberg.

Built in 1886 by Dr. Arthur Rose Guérard (1851-1937, originally of Charleston) for his Swiss wife, Eugenie Engels, it was a private residence and for a short time, a planned school, Heidelberg Academy, "a modern home and garden-school for girls." Scheduled to start in 1914, the school never opened because of the beginning of World War I.

Dr. Guérard sold the property in 1921 to the Associate  Reformed Presbyterian Church and moved to Baltimore and then New York. With his first wife, Eugenie, who died in 1900, he had seven children and then five more with his second wife, Madeleine di Marcarellos.

One of the most well-known of his children is Antoinette Francesca Guérard (1881-1964), an artist specializing in etchings during the "Charleston Renaissance" period in the 1920s-1930s. Her work has been exhibited in various museums in Charleston and the South.

Antoinette Francesca Guérard Rhett