Charles Ives Barber (October 25, 1887June 14, 1962) was an American architect, active primarily in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...

, and vicinity, during the first half of the 20th century. He was cofounder of the firm, Barber & McMurry, through which he designed or codesigned buildings such as the Church Street Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the

General Building The General Building, also called the Tennessee General Building or the First Bank Building, is an office high rise located in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. Constructed in 1925, the 14-story building is the only high rise designed by Charles I. ...

, and the Knoxville YMCA, as well as several campus buildings for the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...

and numerous elaborate houses in West Knoxville.Knoxville Historic Zoning Commission
Lyons View Pike Historic District
, c. 2002. Retrieved: 16 May 2011. Several buildings designed by Barber have been listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. The son of mail-order architect

George Franklin Barber George Franklin Barber (July 31, 1854 – February 17, 1915) was an American architect known for the house designs he marketed worldwide through mail-order catalogs. Barber was one of the most successful residential architects of the late Vict ...

, Charles Barber studied at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

under

Paul Cret Paul Philippe Cret (October 23, 1876 – September 8, 1945) was a French-born Philadelphia architect and industrial designer. For more than thirty years, he taught at a design studio in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylv ...

, from whom he absorbed the

Beaux-Arts style Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorporated Renaissance and B ...

. For most of his career, he primarily designed houses and religious structures, though he also designed schools, clubhouses and courthouses. During the 1930s and 1940s, Barber designed several structures for federal entities such as the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...

and the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

Biography

Early life and career

Barber was born in

DeKalb, Illinois DeKalb ( ) is a city in DeKalb County, Illinois, United States. The population was 40,290 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is named after decorated Franconian-French war hero Johann de Kalb, who died during the Ameri ...

, in 1887, though his parents relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, when he was about a year old. He attended Knoxville's Baker-Himel School, and briefly attended the

. In 1907, his father sent him on a tour of

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, and sought his advice on the proper design of Italian villas, which he used to remodel the home of General

Lawrence Tyson Lawrence Davis Tyson (July 4, 1861August 24, 1929) was an American brigadier general, politician, lawyer and textile manufacturer, who operated primarily out of Knoxville, Tennessee during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During World War ...

(now UT's Tyson Alumni House) that same year. In 1909, Barber enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania. He studied under French-born architect Paul Cret, who was responsible for teaching the Beaux-Arts style to several notable architects in the early 20th century. The Beaux-Arts style would characterize much of Barber's early work. After receiving his Certificate of Proficiency in Architecture in 1911, he returned to Knoxville. Barber's first major work was the Southern States Building, which he designed for the

National Conservation Exposition The National Conservation Exposition was an World's Fair, exposition held in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, between September 1, 1913, and November 1, 1913. The exposition celebrated the cause of bringing national attention to conservation e ...

in 1913. During this same period, he formed a partnership with Dean Parmelee (son of his father's partner, Martin Parmelee) to design Knoxville's First Christian Church, which was completed in 1914.

Barber & McMurry

In 1915, Barber, along with his cousin, David West Barber, and fellow Penn alumnus, Benjamin McMurry (1885–1969), founded the firm Barber & McMurry. The firm's early work focused on houses for affluent Knoxvillians in the

Sequoyah Hills Sequoyah Hills is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, named for the Cherokee scholar Sequoyah.White Lily Flour founder J. Allen Smith (1915) and financier William Cary Ross (1921), both on Lyons View Pike, and the home of Alexander Bonnyman (1916) on

Kingston Pike Kingston Pike is a highway in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, that connects Downtown Knoxville with West Knoxville, Farragut, and other communities in the western part of the county. The road follows a merged stretch of U.S. Route&nb ...

. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Barber & McMurry designed some of Knoxville's most notable public and religious structures, including the Church Street Methodist Church Episcopal Church South (1931), the Knoxville YMCA (1927), the

Candoro Marble Works The Candoro Marble Works was a marble cutting and polishing facility located in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Established as a subsidiary of the John J. Craig Company in 1914, the facility's marble products were used in the construction o ...

showroom (1923), the Holston Hills Country Club (1927), and Barber's lone high-rise, the 15-story General Building (1926). The firm also designed several buildings surrounding Ayres Hall atop the "Hill" at UT, most notably the Hoskins Library, Hesler Hall and Dabney Hall.Carroll Van West,
Tennessee's Historic Landscapes: A Traveler's Guide
' (Knoxville, Tenn.: The University of Tennessee Press, 1995), p. 79. Riverdale-school-knox-tn1

Barber & McMurry designed some of Knoxville's most elaborate houses in the late 1920s. These include Glen Craig (1926), built for Candoro Marble Works owner John C. Craig, Westcliff (1928), built for inventor Weston M. Fulton, and the H.M. Goforth House (1928) on Lyons View Pike. The latter design was awarded the gold medal at the Southern Architecture and Industrial Arts Exposition in 1929.Katherine Wheeler
Barber & McMurry Architects
''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2002. Retrieved: 16 May 2011. During the 1930s, Barber turned his attention to the design of public buildings and houses for various federal entities that had begun operating in

East Tennessee East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 coun ...

. Barber worked with fellow architects

Roland Wank Roland A. Wank (1898–1970) was a Hungarian-American modernist architect, best known for his work for the Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States. Wank was educated at the Royal Joseph Technical University in Budapest. He worked ...

and Louis Grandgent for the Tennessee Valley Authority's Norris project, and succeeded Wank as chief architect of the project in 1934. Barber's firm also designed the Riverdale School (1938) in eastern Knox County and the headquarters for the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in the southeastern United States, southeast, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline o ...

(1940), both built by the

. In the 1940s and 1950s, Barber and McMurry designed several buildings for the

Arrowmont Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts is an Arts and Crafts center in the U.S. city of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The oldest craft school in Tennessee, Arrowmont offers workshops in arts and crafts such as painting, woodworking, drawing, glass, photog ...

campus in

Gatlinburg Gatlinburg is a city in Sevier County, Tennessee, United States. It is located southeast of Knoxville and had a population of 3,577 at the 2020 census. It is a popular mountain resort town, as it rests on the border of Great Smoky Mountains Nat ...

Legacy

Barber died in 1962, and is buried in the Barber family plot in Knoxville's Greenwood Cemetery. In 1976, Barber & McMurry's work was the subject of an exhibition at Knoxville's Dulin Art Gallery. The firm, which currently operates under the name BarberMcMurry, has since transitioned to larger-scale development projects. At his height, Barber was considered the leading practitioner of the Beaux-Arts style in the South. Several of Barber's designs have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, either individually or as contributing properties in historic districts. Many of his surviving houses in West Knoxville have been given historic overlay protection by the Knox County Historic Zoning Commission. Notable losses include Westcliff (demolished 1967), the William Cary Ross House (demolished 1969), the Goforth House (demolished 1982), and the J. Allen Smith House (demolished 2004).

Works

Houses

Barber's residential designs typically consisted of Beaux-Arts elements incorporated into traditional architectural styles, such as Tudor, Gothic, or Renaissance. While his works bear little stylistic resemblance to his father's Late Victorian and Colonial houses, his designs reveal an emphasis on proportion and harmony with nature that characterized his father's architectural philosophy.Michael Tomlan, Introduction to George F. Barber's ''Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of Designs, 1891'' (Dover Publications, 2004), pp. v-xvi. In a typical Charles Barber house, chimneys and fireplaces are emphasized, openings are richly ornamented, and materials for roofs and walls are carefully chosen for color and texture. Three houses constructed on Lyons View Pike in Knoxville illustrate Barber's range of style. The J. Allen Smith House (1915), one of Barber's earliest residential designs, was a primarily Italian Renaissance design, and featured two large chimneys, a tiled roof, and arched loggias. The N.E. Logan House (1929) is a Tudor-style home built to resemble an English Cotswold Cottage, with fieldstone and cedar exterior, thick walls and solid pine interior doors. The Hal Mebanes House (1931), which stands adjacent to the Logan house, is built in the Georgian Revival style, with brick veneer walls, cedar shingles, marble arched entrance, and a rear loggia looking out over the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

and the mountains beyond. Westcliff, Fulton's mansion, was one of Barber's largest domestic undertakings. The house's design, a mixture of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque influences, was consistently modified as Fulton continuously changed his preferences.William Ross McNabb, "Westcliff: Mr. Fulton's Mansion," East Tennessee Historical Society ''Publications'', No. 49 (1977), pp. 93-98. The exterior walls were sheathed in crab orchard stone on the lower floors and stucco on the upper floors, all under a tiled roof. The roof contained a garden flanked by an imposing domed gazebo. The interior consisted of vaulted corridors connected by octagonal lobbies, with arcaded loggias on the west and south sides. An elevator accessed a third-story ballroom and the roof garden.

Churches

Barber designed or codesigned over 50 churches in his career. His earliest church, the First Christian Church (1915) on Fifth Avenue, contains Neoclassical and Romanesque elements.Ann Bennett, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for Emory Place Historic District, May 1994. The church's dominant feature is its projecting pedimented portico, which is supported by Ionic columns. In 1929, Barber designed adjacent Sunday school and office buildings for the church, as well as a central courtyard with arcaded walkways connecting the three buildings. All three buildings are now contributing properties in the

Emory Place Historic District The Emory Place Historic District is a historic district in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, located just north of the city's downtown area. The district consists of several commercial, residential, religious, and public buildings that dev ...

. Barber's grandest church design is the Gothic-style Church Street Methodist Church (1931), which was codesigned with New York architect

John Russell Pope John Russell Pope (April 24, 1874 – August 27, 1937) was an American architecture, architect whose firm is widely known for designing major public buildings, including the National Archives and Records Administration building (completed in 193 ...

. The church, the congregation of which Barber was a member, features an imposing bell tower, central courtyard, and interior arcades.Knoxville Historic Zoning Commission
Church Street Methodist Church National Register Nomination Summary
December 2008. Retrieved: 17 May 2011. The respective roles of Barber and Pope in the church's design are unknown. Other churches designed by Barber in the Gothic style, though on a much smaller scale, include the First Methodist Church in Gatlinburg and Barton Chapel in the Robbins community of

Scott County Scott County is the name of eleven counties in the United States of America: *Scott County, Arkansas *Scott County, Illinois *Scott County, Indiana *Scott County, Iowa, the most populous county on the list *Scott County, Kansas, the least populous ...

Other buildings

Barber's lone high-rise, the Second Renaissance Revival-style General Building (commonly called the First Bank Building after its current anchor tenant), was completed in 1926. The first three stories of the building's South Market and Church Avenue facades are clad in limestone veneer, with three monumental arched openings facing South Market.Cynthia Whitaker, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for the General Building, 12 September 1987. The building's first-floor bank lobby, which includes a mezzanine and vaulted ceilings, is the most impressive interior feature. Barber & McMurry's offices were located in the building from its completion until 1934. Candoro-marble-works-showroom-tn2

Barber and McMurry designed several school buildings, most notably the Riverdale School in east Knox County and the Sequoyah Elementary School in Sequoyah Hills, the latter of which is still in use (though it has been expanded). For buildings designed for the University of Tennessee in the early 1930s, the firm used a modified "campus" Gothic style to match Ayres Hall, which stands at the center of the "Hill". In 1923, Barber designed a showroom and garage for the Candoro Marble Works. The showroom is built of marble blocks, and contains extensive marble ornamentation.Tony VanWinkle, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for Candoro Marble Works Showroom and Garage, 13 July 2004. Barber also designed the adjacent Spanish Colonial-style garage, which features a tiled roof and exterior walls that consist of marble and stucco. Other Barber works include the Holston Hills Country Club (1927), the Christenberry Clubhouse (1936), and the Colonial-style Ossoli Circle Clubhouse (1933). One of Barber's simplest works was the Smoky Mountain Hiking Club Cabin, which the club (of which Barber was a member) assembled in 1934 from the logs of a dismantled pioneer cabin.Robbie Jones, ''The Historic Architecture of Sevier County, Tennessee'' (Sevierville, Tenn.: Smoky Mountain Historical Society, 1997), pp. 109, 353.

References

External links

BarberMcMurry – official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barber, Charles Irving People from DeKalb, Illinois People from Knoxville, Tennessee Architects from Tennessee Beaux Arts architects 1887 births 1962 deaths