Allen Temple A.M.E. Church

109 Green Avenue

City Directories and History: Allen Temple A.M.E. Church, built 1929-30, is significant as the first A.M.E. church in Greenville, and architecturally significant as an excellent example of early twentieth century Classical Revival ecclesiastical design by Juan Benito Molina, a Cuban-born and educated architect, the only black architect practicing in Greenville in the early twentieth century. Organized during Reconstruction as a mission church, Allen Temple A.M.E. was formally organized as a separate congregation in 1881. The church is a large gable-front, steel-frame brick building laid in American bond, with projecting twin towers of unequal height, set upon a partially-subterranean brick basement foundation that features a soldier course water table. A rowlock brick course is located between the water table and the facade’s first floor windows and wraps the building at the window sill level.

NATIONAL REGISTER HISTORY LINK

Other architectural features along the upper facade and other elevations include another bordered soldier course band around the entire building, square cast-stone panel insets on each pilaster that align with the bordered soldier course, and a rowlock brick band at the height of the pilaster capitals. All windows feature cast stone sills, wood frames, leaded stained glass (both geometrical and pictorial), keystones and impost blocks. The church’s west tower is three stories in height and contains a large open arched belfry that once housed the church’s bell, with belt courses, cornices, corbels and pyramidal finials at each corner of its roof’s parapet. The two-story Dreher Educational Building was added in 1949. To the rear of the church is a Craftsman bungalow residence, built ca. 1920, but sheathed in brick between 1929 and 1949, long used as the church parsonage, that contributes to the significance of the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church. Listed in the National Register April 16, 2010.

View the complete text of the nomination form for this National Register property.(Courtesy of South Carolina Department of Archives and History)

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