'Pillared City': Mobile's John Sledge publishes a new book about city's Greek Revival architecture

PillaredBarton.JPGAtop downtown Mobile's Barton Academy, completed by 1837, the rotunda seems to float above the trees. The rotunda is supported by Ionic columns, a hallmark of the Greek Revival style.

MOBILE, Ala. -- John Sledge, author of a new book on Mobile's stately and elegant architecture -- "The Pillared City: Greek Revival Mobile" -- is eager for you to be aware of the treasures in the city that he never tires of exploring.

"I want Mobile readers to look at buildings that they may not see anymore because they're so familiar," said Sledge, who delves into the beauty of Oakleigh, Barton Academy, the old City Hospital, among others.

"I want people," he said of Mobile's Greek Revival buildings, "to appreciate how remarkable they are for their design and esthetic."

PillaredOakleigh.JPGAt Oakleigh, completed in 1833, the outside staircase winds up to an elevated porch. The curved structure, according to John Sledge, exhibits a high degree of craftsmanship.

As senior architectural historian for Mobile's Historic Development Commission, Sledge's daily work is helping to preserve Mobile's sense of place, but he has an enthusiasm for the look and feel of Mobile that seems to spring from his very core.

"The Pillared City," published this week by University of Georgia Press, with striking, black-and-white photographs by Sheila Hagler, is his third in a trilogy about Mobile, following "Cities of Silence: A Guide to Mobile's Historic Cemeteries" and "An Ornament to the City: Old Mobile Ironwork."

The new book is dedicated to his wife, Lynn. The couple has a grown son, Matthew, and a daughter, Elena, a freshman at Auburn.

"I didn't initially envision three books," admitted Sledge, who is also the Press-Register's books editor and columnist. "I knew there were certain aspects of the city's past I had to get out of my system." "Cemeteries" and "Ironwork" didn't get it done, he said. Greek Revival architecture provided the outlet.

He said, "I've always had a love for the Greek Revival, and ancient Greece. When I was a kid I used old bricks and built an ancient Greek ruin out in the woods.

There was an emotional connection, too.

"I had to write about Georgia Cottage. It made it personal for me."

That neo-classical home, down a long, oak-canopied lane off Springhill Avenue, is the focus of Sledge's preface, and the book's emotional centerpiece.

EVENTS FOR
'PILLARED CITY'

* Book signing: Page & Palette bookstore, Fairhope, Oct. 15, 6-8 p.m.
* Museum opening for linked exhibit, and book signing: Museum of Mobile, Oct. 8, 5:30-9 p.m. (Note: this event is a fundraiser; $5 for museum members, $10 for non-members. Proceeds go to the restoration of Barton Academy. Call by Oct. 5 to make a reservation, 208-7419).
* Free public opening of exhibit and book signing: Museum of Mobile, Oct. 11, 2-5 p.m.

A marker there says it was home to Victorian novelist Augusta Evans Wilson.

But to Sledge, later occupants -- his grandparents Edward and Mary Sledge -- provided his heartfelt connection.

"Georgia Cottage," he writes in the book, "was my childhood Arcadia, an enchanted world where past and present seamlessly merged. As I explored its exotic rooms and grounds ... I came to acquire a profound appreciation for historic architecture, landscape, art, antiques, family, and memory. It was there, at a very young age indeed, that I became a historian."

It was the 1830s, Sledge said, that became a watershed decade for Mobile, previously a "colonial backwater."

In the book, he writes, "The construction of Spring Hill College, the City Hospital, and Oakleigh was part of an economic surge transforming Alabama's only seaport."

Nicole Mitchell, director of University of Georgia Press, is Sledge's editor.

Will Sledge deliver yet another volume? Although he has not yet committed himself to a project, he said he has started a file on the history and lore of the Mobile River. He is also trying his hand at fiction.

"Mobile is a distinctive and colorful city," he said, "arguably exotic, and its Greek Revival buildings play a significant role in setting the tone.

"When I return from a long trip, and travel down Government Street or Springhill Avenue, I marvel anew at our high style and vernacular columned glories, and thank my lucky stars that this is my home."

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