June brings Father’s Day, and our minds drift toward memories of the figures in our lives who passed down a name, trade, or favorite chair no one else is allowed to sit in. One man fathered something grander in Brunswick: a wardrobe of grand buildings, dressed in brick, stone, arches, stained glass, and skyline drama.
Photo restored by Josh Dukes
Architect Alfred S. Eichberg
Architect Alfred Salom Eichberg (1859-1921) was born in New York, raised in Atlanta, and trained in Heidelberg, Germany. Eichberg became one of Georgia’s most distinctive architects. Though his main office was in Savannah, he kept a Newcastle Street office in Brunswick to oversee his growing list of local commissions.
By the 1880s, Alfred Eichberg was giving the city a look.
Eichberg’s style was eclectic, with a special love for Romanesque Revival. In Brunswick, that translated into red brick, terra-cotta, ornate stonework, rounded arches, and rooflines with real attitude. His most commanding local statement was Old City Hall, designed in 1886 and completed in 1889. The clock tower, added in 1893, was removed down to the roofline in 1951 after years of deterioration. A major 2003 restoration returned the spire to the skyline, rising once again 110 feet above Newcastle Street.
Josh Dukes
Old City Hall still reaches for the sky on Newcastle Street.
Eichberg also designed Temple Beth Tefilloh, completed in 1889 and still in continual use today. Its original stained-glass windows remain, making the synagogue one of Brunswick’s most enduring examples of his work. His Columbia Downing House, now Brunswick Manor, brought the same sense of occasion to residential design. Built in 1886 for Major Columbia Downing and his family, the house remains one of the crown jewels of the Old Town Historic District, even though its present classical portico was added later, around 1916.
Photo restored and colorized by Josh Dukes
First National Bank of Brunswick stood proudly where the Kress Building stands now.
Not all of Eichberg’s Brunswick work survived. His First National Bank of Brunswick, designed in 1894, once stood near Machen Square on Newcastle Street. In 1958, it was demolished when Kress expanded into the bank’s footprint.
Eichberg never married, but his work remained in high demand until an 1893 economic crash caused his work to dwindle. He returned to Atlanta, continuing occasional work until his death in 1921. He was interred along with his parents at Atlanta’s historic Oakland Cemetery. Fittingly, for a man who understood the power of a signature look, Eichberg’s impressive tombstone remains the only copyrighted tombstone in the cemetery.
Josh Dukes is a local historian and digital photo restoration artist. He is co-author of the book Brunswick: Past & Present, available at local retailers and online. You can reach him at joshdukesofficial.com.
