Location #1 - First Baptist Church

The first of a series of Beaux Arts influenced buildings in Asheville beautifully conjured by Douglas Ellington, a North Carolina native who moved to the city in the mid-twenties from Pittsburgh. Earlier, in 1913, Ellington had received the Prix de Rougevin, the first American to achieve this competitive honor for design at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Ellington based the church's sanctuary on the cathedral and dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, generally known as the Duomo di Firenze, a world heritage site. He layered colored tiles on the dome, graduating from green to deep red (as in the change of seasons) while combining orange bricks, terra cotta moldings and pink marble in the walls of the church. Ellington's striking sense of natural forms is represented in palm leaf detailing and other Art Deco relief work. First Baptist, finished in 1927, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.