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Temple Beth Sholom

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1900, R. Bertrand Graham. 127 Sutherlin Ave.
  • (HABS; Photograph by Tim Buchman)

Danville's German Reformed Jewish congregation, founded in 1893, chose Romanesque Revival for their synagogue. While reminiscent of many synagogues built in Germany in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the congregation also wanted it to be identifiable as an American house of worship, and the style was popular at the turn of the twentieth century. Although neither red brick nor Romanesque Revival is unusual, the temple nevertheless is distinctive with its irregular placement of round-arched windows in the gable-end entrance facade and the positioning of the semicircular tower with its louvered belfry capped by a conical roof. The tower has no entrance to it either inside or out. The entrance leads into a modest vestibule in front of an open sanctuary. The stark plainness of the facade is broken by belt courses that continue around the tower to link the two together.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Anne Carter Lee
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Data

What's Nearby

First Presbyterian Church
Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History
John H. Schoolfield House
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Citation

Anne Carter Lee, "Temple Beth Sholom", [Danville, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-02-PI51.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Virginia vol 2

Buildings of Virginia: Valley, Piedmont, Southside, and Southwest, Anne Carter Lee and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015, 374-375.

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