For nearly a century, Asheville High School’s historic main building has stood as a stoic monument to public education in the North Carolina city known as the “Paris of the South.” This National Register building, which opened in 1929 and features an arched entranceway with a soaring central rotunda, was designed by architect Douglas Ellington, whose other trademark Beaux-Arts and Art Deco structures include the City Hall and the Biltmore Hospital, defining the skyline of the southern city in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Aside from minor repairs and patches, the local-granite veneer exterior façade and tiled roofs of the main building, whose three wings radiate like the blades of an airplane propeller, remained virtually unchanged for more than eight decades. Approaching a time of required maintenance and upgrades, a team of experts was assembled to tackle the project. Within the design phase, members of the team approached Ludowici, being the original tile manufacturer that also had supplied tiles for other iconic Asheville buildings, including All Souls Church, Grove Park Inn, First Baptist Church, and City Hall. Ludowici was tasked with designing a roof to authentically mimic history while using modern processes to make the tiles look old, but not too old. Selecting a historically appropriate style for the 50,000-square-foot roof was challenging.
Different colors and styles were laid out on the roof, then several 6-foot-by-6-foot mockups were made and attached to view from the street and from a distance to see what the public sees. Once a choice was made, there would be no turning back, and Ludowici was determined to get it right. With alternative standard products from a different product family, Ludowici’s Provincial shingle tile, a 7-inch by 5-inch terra cotta tile that fit within the project’s budget was chosen.
After the team sent photos and tile samples, a color scheme was selected in reds, oranges, and browns. Each of these distinct selections needed the range within that color to be blended perfectly onsite. Ludowici had to make sure the right percentage amounts of each color made them look more historically accurate. To get the best match, an unconventional choice to glaze the red and orange tiles with an ebony mist was the perfect approach. The tiles were formed with an extrusion process, cut, and sandblasted to appear a part of the aging process, then hand-sprayed with a colored glaze. Baker Roofing, with whom Ludowici has worked on many restoration projects, created the perfect color blend for the tile layouts.
The restoration of the main building is seen as a tribute not only to Ellington but also to all the high school alumni who call Asheville home. The restoration was named Ludowici’s 2018 Project of the Year.
