The Return of Lake Toxaway: Boyd and Heinitsh
Lake Toxway Company partners Donny Boyd and Reg Heinitsh Sr. could not have been more different, and according to Susan Boyd, speaking in the audio snippet at right, this may have led to both a balanced working relationship and also their eventual friendly split.
When their partnership was dissolved in the early ’70s, Boyd went on to create Sapphire Lakes, now the Burlingame neighborhoods and a country club with a world-class golf course; and Heinitsh built out Lake Toxaway Estates and several surrounding communities.
Before we explore those arenas, let’s take a look at the two men themselves.
Darnell “Donny” Whitmell Boyd
February 19, 1927 – June 23, 2015
Born in Richmond, Virginia, Donnie Boyd lived all but the first two weeks of his life in Columbia, South Carolina.
Darnall’s participation in youth scouting earned him coveted Eagle Scout status, and he was an ardent supporter of the Boy Scouts of America during his lifetime.
After completing service in the U.S. Navy in the late stages of WWII, Boyd became one of the first South Carolinians to visit Africa on a 3 ½ month safari in Kenya and Tanganyika in 1948.
Boyd graduated from the University of Virginia in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics.
He married wife Susan Faire and they had two children, Darnell Jr. and Tyler.
A short time later, he joined Reginald Heinitsh Sr. in the residential construction business, a partnership that eventually led to their purchase of 9,000 acres on the Sapphire-Toxaway Plateau, as well as the recreation of Lake Toxaway.
Eventually the joint property was split between the two partners, and Boyd developed a resort community, Sapphire Lakes (now Burlingame), on his part of the land parcel. During the same period and beyond, he was also involved in many other residential and commercial projects in both Carolinas.
Donny Boyd
Toward the late 1990s, Boyd gifted an open space in front of the Columbia Museum of Art to the city, dedicated to the memory of their firstborn son. Boyd Plaza has since become one of downtown’s most visible gathering spots.In September 2010, the Darnall W. and Susan F. Boyd Foundation Inc. was established to provide funding in education and the arts.
Susan Faire Boyd has remained active in managing the foundation since her husband’s passing in 2015 at the age of 88. Recently, the foundation donated $1.25M to Clemson University’s College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences to develop a program, Boyds Scholars, that specifically assists freshmen engineering majors.
Reg Heinitsh Sr.
Reginald Heinitsh Sr.
September 24, 1918 – September 27, 1992
Reg Heinitsh was born and raised in Columbia, S.C. When he came of age, he attended the University of South Carolina and the University of Virginia before entering the Army Air Corps in 1939. He trained as a B-52 pilot and graduated a 2nd Lieutenant.
He married the late Isabel Whaley Sloan while the war was still on, in 1941. Heinitsh subsequently saw active service in Egypt with the British 8th Army, flying B-25s and receiving a Purple Heart, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Force medal (3 clusters). After the war, he retired as a colonel from the U.S. Air Force.
The couple had four children – Agnes H. Heinitsh Willcox; Reginald D. Heinitsh, Jr.; John S. Heinitsh Sr., and Isabel S. Heinitsh Nichols.
In the early ‘60s, Heinitsh formed the Lake Toxaway Company in partnership with Boyd and others. When company assets were later divided, he retained and began to develop the property around the lake, eventually establishing a second home for his family there in the historic Inman home, one of the few original lake homes. He remained involved in the company until his retirement in 1983, when Reg Jr. took the reins.
After a divorce in 1987, Heinitsh re-married, to Beulah R. Fisher. Five years later, he passed away in Atlanta at the age of 74.
Brothers Reg Heinitsh Jr. and John Heinitsh remain active in the Historic Toxaway community. Agnes has homes in both Lake Toxaway and Florence, S.C., and the late Isabel Heinitsh Nichols lived in both Columbia and Lake Toxaway. As well, there are numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the area. As HTF board member (and grandson of Reg Sr) John Nichols III puts it, “We’re a whole clan.”
