Political Debate

Rising proudly to the Carolina blue sky with a rush of Georgia pink marble, the Asheville City Building has stood in downtown Asheville since 1927. Designed in the Art Deco style (known as the Style Modern or Neo-Romantic in the 1920s) by architect Douglas Ellington of Asheville, the Asheville City Building serves as a landmark for the city of Asheville’s unique artistic expression and as a reminder of Asheville’s progressive spirit and its economic boom before the Great Crash of 1929.^5,25 Towering over the City Building in an imposing Neo-Classical style, the Buncombe County Courthouse serves as a landmark of the county’s commitment to traditionalism and security.

Originally in 1926, Ellington had planned that twin Art Deco style buildings with a promenade connecting the city building to the county courthouse would comprise the city-county Civic Center. Later in 1926, Ellington revised the courthouse design by the specifications that county officials had requested while maintaining the courthouse’s Art Deco style that worked so harmoniously with the City Building. Enthusiastic about this project and Asheville’s progressive endeavors, Ellington also designed the Civic Center grounds and constructed a scaled plaster model of the Civic Center. Yet in the end the architectural firm Millburn and Heister of Washington, D.C. built the County Courthouse in a style completely different from the style of the City Building. In their own words: "We question the advisability of handicapping the future development of the Civic Center with the Romantic Style of architecture." ²¹

Why exactly did this happen? Well, no one knows exactly why this happened, despite numerous attempts to discover the real reason. Though Ellington was hired officially only by the city of Asheville and had yet to hear from the county, he was nonetheless stunned to read the headline in the Asheville Citizen on Sunday morning, January 2, 1927 that Millburn and Heister would construct the county courthouse.¹⁹ The accompanying sketch of Millburn’s courthouse that resembled Ellington’s own courthouse design about as much as his toast resembled his eggs couldn’t have helped his breakfast go down too well either. Ellington in fact had received little response from the county officials about constructing their courthouse, yet he probably assumed that the officials’ artistic sensibilities certainly would not allow a Neo-Classical courthouse next to a Neo-Romantic building. Disturbed by the newspaper headline and more distraught than he would display, Ellington wrote to the Buncombe County Commissioners E.M. Lyda, W.E. Johnson, W. Emory McLean, and M.L. Reed and sincerely tried to understand how an "invisible barrier" had been put up between him and the county officials.¹⁴ Despite Ellington’s heartfelt letter and pleas to the Commission of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C., who believed that two such different designs would be "calculated to produce discord and seriously impair the impressiveness and dignity of the Civic Center itself," ⁹ the county officials continued construction with the Neo-Classical courthouse designed by Millburn and Heister.

Perhaps the same Asheville city and Buncombe county conflict occurring today (over zoning, for example) played a major role in the drama concerning the Civic Center design. During the planning stages of the Civic Center in 1924-26, the county officials wanted to go slowly with such an enormous building project that would inevitably place Asheville in large debt, but the city officials, especially the dynamic and out-spoken Mayor John Cathey, wanted to push ahead as quickly as possible to take advantage of Asheville’s great economic boom.^16,20 Mayor Cathey often got himself in trouble and exacerbated the conflict between Asheville and Buncombe County over the issue of extending the city limits to control the water supply.^2,7 With the pursuit of several major building projects, Cathey himself no doubt wanted to leave a legacy as the mayor who essentially built Asheville because the planned Civic Center would have been the tallest and, arguably, thanks to Ellington, the most unique Civic Center in the Southern United States. In fact, Mayor Cathey’s attitude to build the Asheville City Building and go ahead with construction without the county officials’ complete approval, calling certain members of the county’s Citizen’s Committee "kickers" and "sore-heads",²⁰ could have pushed the county officials to reject the city’s design and Cathey’s favorite architect Ellington outright. Cathey’s rude comments and his rather pushy attitude may have lead the county officials’ to reject not Ellington himself or his design as much as what they saw as the city’s design and its hurried and too-progressive attitude.

As it stands today, the Civic Center itself represents the contrast and occasional conflict between Asheville and Buncombe County. The Asheville City Building represents the progressive and artistic spirit that was propelling Asheville forward in the 1920s but also was amassing a huge debt for the Asheville and Buncombe County area, upwards of 50 million dollars.¹⁷ The Buncombe County Courthouse represents the conservative, traditional, and safe reasonability that had supported the county for so long yet was finding it difficult to adapt to the changes of the time.

Ellington’s niece Sally Middleton said that, though Ellington never again mentioned the county’s rejection of his courthouse design, she believed that it scarred him deeply because he so enthusiastically wanted to help plan and build an elegant and progressive Asheville. Even though the City Building and the County Courthouse now blend in with Asheville’s eclectic collection of architecture, they still attest to the conflict of views between urban and rural citizens.

Kim Angelon & Summer Whitson
April 27, 2001
Course paper for Classics 373, UNC Asheville [used with permission]