Connemara , located in Flat Rock,  was the last home of famed
poet and historian Carl Sandburg . Christopher Gustavus
Memminger  of Charleston, S.C., former Confederate  secretary of
the treasury, built the property as a summer house in 1838.
Memminger called the property Rock Hill, but a later owner,
Capt. Ellison Smythe , renamed it Connemara. Sandburg bought the
property in 1945, seeking peace and solitude for his writing as
well as a place for his wife Lilian to raise champion dairy
goats. He wrote almost one-third of his works during his 22
years at Connemara. On 17 Oct. 1968, Congress established
Connemara as the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site  to
be administered by the National Park Service . The historic site
consists of the antebellum house, a dairy goat barn complex and
a representative goat herd, sheds, rolling pastures,
mountainside woods, walking/hiking trails, two small lakes,
ponds, flower and vegetable gardens, and an orchard. Carl
Sandburg Home National Historic Site: http://www.np