Macon Magazine

13: Beaux Arts Washington Memorial Library, 1180 Washington Ave., 1916 ELLEN WASHINGTON BELLAMY provided $50,000 and this property for the construction of the Washington Library honoring her brother, Hugh Vernon Washington. eir father, James Henry Russell Washington, was born in Wilkes County in 1809. As a planter and businessman, he rose to be mayor of Milledgeville and then later, of Macon. He married his first cousin, Mary Hammond from South Carolina. e family's large wooden dwelling, the Washington McCook House, formerly stood on this site. At first shifted to face College Street, the house was eventually moved to Park Place by InTown Macon to save it from demolition in the expansion of the library. e original section of the library building was designed by J. Elliott Dunwody Jr., a 1914 graduate of Georgia Tech and a founder of the Macon architectural firm of Nisbet, Brown and Dunwody (still in operation today). Named for the Ecole des Beaux Artes in Paris where many American architects and designers of the late 19th and early 20th century trained, the resulting buildings of this movement generally follow Renaissance Classical inspiration but with exuberant and deliberately elaborate ornamentation that would not be seen in the European precedents. Symmetrical facades and smooth wall surfaces of stone decorated with ornate brackets, swags, panels, plaques and cartouches, with arched windows, columns and flat roofs often distinguish this style. Beaux Arts design also characterizes other Macon landmarks such as the William A. Bootle Federal Building and U.S Courthouse (1905) and the Terminal Station (1916). In the case of the original library as designed by Dunwody, the principal Washington Avenue elevation boasts an engaged portico with ionic columns and an entry architrave of marble details featuring the Washington family coat of arms. Although originally approached by a stone staircase with flanking bronze torcheres, this entrance was closed when the new addition of 1979 altered the library's orientation. Large windows with arched transoms, square Doric pilasters surmounted by shields from the Washington coat of arms, a frieze with various carvings of attributes such as "Literature" and "Science" and a tall parapet further complete the Beaux Arts character of the library. Ellen Washington Bellamy told a friend that she went to the building site after dark and placed her family Bible with its important records into the cornerstone before it was sealed. 14: Late (High Victorian) Gothic Revival Holsey Temple CME Church, 1011 Washington Ave., 1895 THE CONGREGATION OF THIS CHURCH began worshipping as a part of First Methodist Church (now Mulberry Street Methodist) in 1839 while most members were enslaved people. In 1867, the newly independent congregation was organized and the current parcel was purchased with financial help from the Mulberry Street congregation. e original 1870 building on the site was destroyed by fire in 1895, and this structure was erected thereafter. e CME church was organized in 1870 to create a separate African-American denomination out of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. e Macon congregation named the church after CME Bishop Lucius Holsey, a former slave who co-founded Payne College in Augusta and established Holsey Institute in Cordele. Architecturally, the current church of 1890 is derived from a later phase of the Gothic Revival, often called High Victorian Gothic. English designer John Ruskin popularized this mode, deriving a more ornamented approach based on European Gothic models. is building is asymmetrical in form with two differing towers on opposite ends: one terminates in a crenellated parapet and the other possesses a four-sided peaked roof. e deep red brick exterior exhibits the best characteristics of this fashion with heavy structural detailing and decoration embedded in the masonry, such as basketweave patterning on the east tower and channeling in the buttresses. While most of the windows on the towers and the sides of the nave are lancet-arched, the front entry is surmounted by a group of rounded arched windows and a bullseye window beneath a stepped gable parapet. On the interior, the bracketed wooden ceiling, stained glass, pipe organ and pews are original. A few doors to the east stands the Washington Avenue Presbyterian Church, also in Late Gothic style, which began in 1838 as a congregation of enslaved people worshipping together at First Presbyterian Church and is considered to be the oldest African- American church in Georgia. ese two remarkable religious buildings comprise a major part of Macon's historic community of faith. JUNE/JULY 2020 | maconmagazine.com 83

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