The name Valley Hill for a community is a 20th century occurrence. The derivation of the name and why the community came to be called Valley Hill are not known.
The community is within a valley.
Sections of the community were most likely considered a part of the Big Willow and Flat Rock communities for many years.
Today, the community is bordered by town of Laurel Park and the city of Hendersonville to the north. To the south and east is the traditional community of Flat Rock. Also to the south, Valley Hill is bordered by the Crab Creek community. On the west is the Big Willow community.
Early families were Anders, Nelson, Drake, Greer, Connell, Anderson, King, Sentell, Ficker, Redden, Gibbs, Hefner, Patterson, Justus, Brown, Fisher, Orr, Summey, Sexton, Wilkie, Prince, Harden, Camp and more.
A section of the community closer to Crab Creek and Flat Rock is better known among local folks as Pleasant Hill.
The community of Pleasant Hill was named for the estate of William Johnstone. He built the home that he named Pleasant Hill in 1839. Johnstone was the son of Andrew Johnstone who owned the Beaumont estate in Flat Rock.
Post office
The first post office in the region was established in 1881 and named Delmont. The post office was located on today’s Kanuga Road, at that time called Crab Creek Road, in what were a store and a Drake home opposite Pleasant Hill Baptist Church.
Today, residents get their mail through the Hendersonville Post Office.
Schools
There was a one-room school named Pleasant Hill that served the community, most likely established in the late 1800s. It stood near the corner of today’s Kanuga Road and Old Kanuga Road.
In the early 1900s, a three-room school named Valley Hill was built. The building grew to five rooms by 1919. By 1928, Valley Hill was a union school serving grades one through high school. High school students from the Pleasant Hill School began attending Valley Hill.
In 1934, the high school at Valley Hill closed and high school students attended Flat Rock High School.
In 1938, the Pleasant Hill School closed and those elementary school students began attending the Valley Hill School.
In 1960, high school students from the Valley Hill community and the old Pleasant Hill community began attending East Henderson High School and junior high students attended Flat Rock Junior High, then later Flat Rock Middle School.
In 1983, the Valley Hill School closed when the new Atkinson Elementary School was built on Old Kanuga Road.
Since that time, the old school was used at one time by a private school (Pathway Christian Academy) that closed in 2007. The building now stands abandoned.
Churches
The Pleasant Hill Baptist Church was established in the 1870s. It was originally known as Antioch Baptist Church in 1869 at a different location, but a building was soon built at his present location (Little River Road and Kanuga Road). A white clapboard building was dedicated in 1901.
In a suspected arson fire in 1971, the building burned and a new brick structure was built. The original church bell is on a brick platform facing Kanuga Road (Crab Creek Road).
Valley Hill Baptist Church was established in the community about the mid-20th century.
There are now newer and more recent churches in the community, such as Covenant Presbyterian Church and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
Kanuga Conferences
The old Pleasant Hill community was also the site of the old Kanuga Lake Club and later the Episcopal Kanuga Conferences Center and Camps.
George Stephens established the Kanuga Lake Club in 1907 and in 1908 built a dam on Little Mud Creek to form a lake. Architect Richard Sharp Smith designed the one-story frame cottages. A clubhouse and roads were built. The Flood of 1916 left the club in ruins.
In 1928 and 1929 the Episcopal Diocese purchased the property. Youth camps were built on the property, along with an outdoor and indoor chapel. The Episcopal Conference Center is now the largest Episcopal center in the United States.
Other
The Valley Hill Fire Department was organized to serve the communities of Valley Hill and Crab Creek in 1956.
A community cemetery known as the Pleasant Hill Cemetery is also located in the community.
There are many old stately homes dating from the mid-1800s in the community, including Dawn Hill, the home of DuBose Heyward, the writer of the novel “Porgy” and co-author with George Gershwin of the American opera, Broadway musical and movie “Porgy and Bess.” He wrote the play with Gershwin at Dawn Hill.
There was also a nightclub in the mid-20th century located on the shores of Osceola Lake.
There are some historical store buildings still standing. One store was near Osceola Lake and another, the Drake Store, across from Pleasant Hill Baptist Church.
Click on the link below for an additional story on Osceola Lake and the Inn.