13. The CANDLER BUILDING

(open), 127 Peachtree St., NE., built 1904-06, was Atlanta's first skyscraper. So impressive were its 17 stories of Georgia white marble, rising high above the surrounding buildings, that as tall as the Candler Building was for several years a popular local simile.

Economy was apparently no item in the plans for a structure that was intended to be the finest and best equipped office building in the South. Excavations prior to laying the foundation required six months of blasting into the stratum of solid granite which underlies a large part of Atlanta. Installed in the first basement were luxurious baths and a swimming pool 20 feet long by 16 feet wide. The second basement contained a hydraulic power plant which for many years provided the current for the building.

The ornamentation is elaborate even for a period that was characterized by lavishness in architecture. For the execution of the artisticdetails Candler imported sculptors from Italy, France, England, and Scotland.

Marble was used for wainscoting and floors throughout all the corridors, and the two 26-foot pillars at the Houston Street entrance were cut from single blocks. A series of panels carved across the three sides of the building represents sculpture, art, literature, music, natural history, astronomy, statesmanship, agriculture, and steam power. Plaques bear the portraits of famous men carved in high relief, and marble atlantes support the imposing arch on both the Peachtree and Pryor Street entrances.

From the lobby a grand staircase constructed of Amicalola marble winds upward to the second floor and downward to the first basement. The broad marble rail ends with a flourish in the form of a dolphin. The elaborately carved frieze along the stairway portrays in high relief Alexander H. Stephens, Charles J. Jenkins, General John B. Gordon, General Joseph E. Wheeler, Sidney Lanier, Joel Chandler Harris, and Eli Whitney. In two niches are busts of Asa G. Candler's parents. Interesting embellishments include the marble alligators above the drinking fountains, the bronze birds that support the marble stairway, the bronze mailboxes bearing Latin mottoes, and the grillwork on the stairway that leads through the upper floors.

The southern portion of the lot on which the Candler Building stands is the site of old Wesley Chapel, a small structure of sawn planks that was erected in 1848 by the trustees of the First Methodist Church. During the War between the States the Confederate Government confiscated the northern part of the lot as a location for the headquarters of the Confederate Commissary Department. When the United States Government sold the captured Confederate property after the war, the congregation of the First Methodist Church purchased this adjacent site and in 1870 began construction of a tall-spired brick and stone edifice, which for many years was one of the leading houses of worship in Atlanta. About the turn of the century the expanding membership and the encroaching commercial houses of the growing city prompted the congregation to buy land farther out Peach-tree Street and erect a larger church. The Candler Investment Company acquired the property in 1903 and engaged George E. Murphy to draw plans for the office building. Several changes have since been made in the lower floors to meet the needs of tenants. 

Contents