Candoro’s Next Chapter
“I walked every day to Young High School for 4 years and graduated in 1944, every day passing the Marble Mill going to and coming home from school. The Marble Mill office was a beautiful building. As teenagers, my friends and I would pose for pictures on Sunday afternoons because the beautiful setting…”
-Mary Elizabeth Rule, Vestal Resident (1926-2020)
I tend to forget; while taking in large marble sculptures or an ornate stone building, that the materials themselves have histories, and complex ones at that––which shape cities, generations of families, industries, and the environment. As our city grows and changes, how do we preserve those histories? When industries change, landscapes develop, and communities evolve, what does it mean to work to maintain these connections to our region’s past?
Aerial view of the Candoro Marble Mill and office, ca. 1935. Photo courtesy of the McClung Collection
This is a guest post by Sean Heiser, I am a graduate intern at the Aslan Foundation as part of a fellowship program through the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Recently I have been researching the history of the Candoro Marble Mill and the surrounding area, and wanted to share some of my thoughts on the historic building.
In an era defined by fast-casual architecture and boxy apartment buildings, the Beaux-Arts façade of the Candoro Marble office stands out as a reminder of the potential within design. A building designed to sell the marble that adorned it, the care and artistry through which it was realized is still resonant today. From the marble spindles that create the garage arcade to the delicately carved cornices, the building is a testament to the pursuit of beauty.
Original blueprint drawing for the Candoro Office, photo courtesy of the Aslan Foundation
But the restored office building is also a remnant of a much larger industry. Candoro Marble, alongside the Vestal Lumber Company, were massive employers in the area, and many of their employees lived in the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the factories. The factory buildings now are long abandoned or simply gone, the families employed by the industry moved on, and the once active quarries now favorite swimming holes. In that way I see the restored Candoro office further as a monument to these times, and to an industry that has come and gone.
I live just up the hill from the neighborhood that Mary Rule called home for so long, and on my commute to and from the University, I still see friends or families, sometimes homecoming groups, posing for quick photos in front of the Candoro office, some 80 years after Mary posed there for photos as a teenager. There is an inter-generational draw to the building; some are taken by its beauty and craft, while others see it as a monument to a different Knoxville.
Image from the Tennessee Triennial: RE-PAIR, Kenturah Davis and Rubens Ghenov, photo courtesy of Tri-Star Arts
I first entered the Candoro Marble Building on a tour led by Brian Jobe, Executive Director of the Tri-Star Arts organization, the arts non-profit that now calls Candoro home. They are adding a new layer to the building’s history, working to provide much-needed arts programming to the community. With the marble industry all but gone from Vestal, I am excited for the shift in programming led by Tri-Star. Ambitious in scope and working to become an accessible cultural outpost for the neighborhood, this forward-thinking next chapter––staunch in its mission to preserve the past––ensures that the Candoro Marble Office will remain a Vestal landmark and place of pride for generations to come.