Macon Magazine

2: Gothic Revival Christ Episcopal Church, 538-566 Walnut St., circa 1851, National Register of Historic Places SERVING THE CONGREGATION of Macon's first church organization, the current structure replaced a smaller wooden building from 1834. By 1840, Americans began to fully embrace the Gothic Revival style, especially for public and ecclesiastical buildings. is highly romantic architectural form, inspired by medieval castles and cathedrals, was already reaching its zenith in Victorian Britain, especially in notable public buildings such as the rebuilt Palace of Westminster. e construction of the church was supervised by James Ayres, Macon's leading builder/contractor, responsible for the Lanier House Hotel, the Emerson building and (by tradition) the William B. Johnston (now Hay) House. As Johnston was a leading member of the church building committee, some have speculated that the designers of his house, the New York architectural firm of T. omas and Son, may have had some role in the plan for the church. In fact, Johnston paid for changes to the Christ Church plan at an early stage in order to add more pew space. Christ Church boasts the traditional early 19th century Gothic elements: the steep principal roofline, a central square tower with a crenelated parapet, windows with lancet (pointed) arches and molded pinnacles capping buttress projections. e façade is stucco over brick, retaining its early finish with scoring – intended to make the church appear to be of stone construction. Christ Church was probably the first building in Macon to possess stained or enameled glass windows. e front windows and those over the side doorways are likely original but others were added between 1870 and the 1940s. Jones Chapel, behind the church, was added in 1879 and the Gothic-style Parish Hall connected by a cloistered hyphen was built in 1926. 3: Late Federal/Second Empire Rowhouses Ayres (Slate) Row, 931-945 Walnut St., circa 1855, National Register of Historic Places BUILDER JAMES AYRES erected Macon's only remaining grouping of Antebellum row houses as a rental investment. His estate papers indicate these were finished just as he was undertaking the construction of the Johnston (Hay) House in 1855. e houses, with their English basements of stuccoed brick, their principal wood stories with tall six-over-six windows and the massive gambrel roof, exhibit overtones of Federal, Classical Revival, Greek Revival, as well as a few details from the new Second Empire style. Most of the facades of the four structures are original, including the window frames and sashes with period "wavy" glass, the rectilinear front doors shaded by simple Tuscan-columned porticoes, the stucco quoins, the weatherboard siding, the wide cornice that conceals a 22-inch gutter and, notably, the alternating pedimented and arched rooflines of the dormers. James Ayres was born in New Jersey to an extended family of builders and followed his brother Asher to Macon. Ayres' thriving building practice included two enslaved Africans, Primus Moore and Ben Jackson, specialty craftsmen in carpentry and plasterwork. After Emancipation, Moore continued in his own company. Constructed in the model of the Anglo-American townhouse, each unit is divided by thick masonry walls from its neighbor and boasts ground floor rooms used as the kitchen and dining room, a front and back parlor on its main level, and two bedchambers and a trunk room above. Evidence indicates that one or more of these houses were rented to tradesmen who worked on the Johnston project. After Ayres' death, the McBurney family bought the row and these rental dwellings continued in the same usage until 1922, when a new owner altered the interiors, turning the grouping into a single apartment building that later acquired a notorious reputation. In 1959, the dilapidated Ayres Row was acquired by four well- known Maconites who restored the single character of each dwelling while carefully maintaining the important surviving features. eir joint rehabilitation of Ayres Row constituted the first major historic preservation project in Macon. JUNE/JULY 2020 | maconmagazine.com 77

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