non Drupal pages can't be viewed

Like your e-commerce vendor suggests, this should not be a problem.

I did two quick tests:

create a simple html file in the root of a default drupal site
http://rootdirtest-skrinakcreative.rhcloud.com/1.html
-- works fine

And then create a simple php page within a subdirectory off the drupal root:
http://rootdirtest-skrinakcreative.rhcloud.com/snookums/phpinfo.php
-- works fine

No problems, as I expected.

Can you check your log files? It should show attempts by apache to serve from that location. I'm also wondering how your .htaccess is different from the Drupal default — or did the e-commerce software set the .htaccess file?

You didn't ask, but the problem with this workflow will be when it is time to update drupal. You might want to think about alternative ways to have your ecommerce and drupal directories separate.

have you tried NOT using camelCase for the directory name? dpickerel is right in saying that if Drupal is being invoked, then Apache does not thing the directory/file that you are asking for is part of the file system. Depending on the Apache setup, camelCase can present an issue in this respect.

Your first issue here is apache - Drupal should not be invoked at all if you request a directory/file combination that actually exists.

The "new directory" strategy did not work. I created a new directory, BCSafari, in the html root, and oddly it displays the body of the file, but also includes the "site under maintenance"

http://savannastation.carolinatigerrescue.org/BCSafari/default.html - see for yourself (I would have expected one or the other, not both)

I use SSIs for the header and footer- these are not displayed on the link above.

my .htaccess- the only change I have made is the Rewrite condition for the BigCatSafari folder after ReWrite Engine On

ErrorDocument 401 /401.html
#
# Apache/PHP/Drupal settings:
#

# Protect files and directories from prying eyes.

Order allow,deny

# Don't show directory listings for URLs which map to a directory.
Options -Indexes

# Follow symbolic links in this directory.
Options +FollowSymLinks

# Make Drupal handle any 404 errors.
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php

# Set the default handler.
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm

# Override PHP settings that cannot be changed at runtime. See
# sites/default/default.settings.php and drupal_environment_initialize() in
# includes/bootstrap.inc for settings that can be changed at runtime.

# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2.

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc off
php_flag magic_quotes_sybase off
php_flag register_globals off
php_flag session.auto_start off
php_value mbstring.http_input pass
php_value mbstring.http_output pass
php_flag mbstring.encoding_translation off

# Requires mod_expires to be enabled.

# Enable expirations.
ExpiresActive On

# Cache all files for 2 weeks after access (A).
ExpiresDefault A1209600

# Do not allow PHP scripts to be cached unless they explicitly send cache
# headers themselves. Otherwise all scripts would have to overwrite the
# headers set by mod_expires if they want another caching behavior. This may
# fail if an error occurs early in the bootstrap process, and it may cause
# problems if a non-Drupal PHP file is installed in a subdirectory.
ExpiresActive Off

# Various rewrite rules.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/BigCatSafari/.*$
# Set "protossl" to "s" if we were accessed via https://. This is used later
# if you enable "www." stripping or enforcement, in order to ensure that
# you don't bounce between http and https.
RewriteRule ^ - [E=protossl]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule ^ - [E=protossl:s]

# Make sure Authorization HTTP header is available to PHP
# even when running as CGI or FastCGI.
RewriteRule ^ - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

# Block access to "hidden" directories whose names begin with a period. This
# includes directories used by version control systems such as Subversion or
# Git to store control files. Files whose names begin with a period, as well
# as the control files used by CVS, are protected by the FilesMatch directive
# above.
#
# NOTE: This only works when mod_rewrite is loaded. Without mod_rewrite, it is
# not possible to block access to entire directories from .htaccess, because
# is not allowed here.
#
# If you do not have mod_rewrite installed, you should remove these
# directories from your webroot or otherwise protect them from being
# downloaded.
RewriteRule "(^|/)\." - [F]

# If your site can be accessed both with and without the 'www.' prefix, you
# can use one of the following settings to redirect users to your preferred
# URL, either WITH or WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix. Choose ONLY one option:
#
# To redirect all users to access the site WITH the 'www.' prefix,
# (http://example.com/... will be redirected to http://www.example.com/...)
# uncomment the following:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
# RewriteRule ^ http%{ENV:protossl}://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
#
# To redirect all users to access the site WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix,
# (http://www.example.com/... will be redirected to http://example.com/...)
# uncomment the following:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
# RewriteRule ^ http%{ENV:protossl}://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

# Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory or in a
# VirtualDocumentRoot and the rewrite rules are not working properly.
# For example if your site is at http://example.com/drupal uncomment and
# modify the following line:
# RewriteBase /drupal
#
# If your site is running in a VirtualDocumentRoot at http://example.com/,
# uncomment the following line:
# RewriteBase /

# Pass all requests not referring directly to files in the filesystem to
# index.php. Clean URLs are handled in drupal_environment_initialize().
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]

# Rules to correctly serve gzip compressed CSS and JS files.
# Requires both mod_rewrite and mod_headers to be enabled.

# Serve gzip compressed CSS files if they exist and the client accepts gzip.
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.gz -s
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.css $1\.css\.gz [QSA]

# Serve gzip compressed JS files if they exist and the client accepts gzip.
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.gz -s
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.js $1\.js\.gz [QSA]

# Serve correct content types, and prevent mod_deflate double gzip.
RewriteRule \.css\.gz$ - [T=text/css,E=no-gzip:1]
RewriteRule \.js\.gz$ - [T=text/javascript,E=no-gzip:1]

# Serve correct encoding type.
Header set Content-Encoding gzip
# Force proxies to cache gzipped & non-gzipped css/js files separately.
Header append Vary Accept-Encoding

You can see the hosting controls I might have to work with from this screencapture:
http://carolinatigerrescue.org/downloads/2014-03-04%20Godaddy%20hosting%...

what else shall I try?