544 W Main St

From the National Register nomination

One-story brick church building converted to many alternate uses over time, with a series of twentieth-century additions associated with ownership by local newspaper. Original building is of solid brick consttuction, three bays wide and five bays deep, with a central entry set into a slightly projecting pavilion. The walls have recessed panels and ate capped by an ornate brick cornice with modillion-like details and a tall parapet. Some original segmentally arched windows, with twelve-over-twelve double-hung sash, survive on the west elevation, but the facade windows have been reduced to six-over-six sash. The focal point of the front entry is the original double-leaf wood door with arched beveled glass panels, octagonal wood panels, and original hardware. The doors are set beneath a multi-pane transom, which is set beneath a segmentally arched brick panel that was once a window opening. The two-story tear wing, dating from 1946 and 1963-1964, is a simple modern brick box with a flat roof and large steel-framed windows. The rearmost one-story section of the building is similarly constructed, and its flat roof is used as a terrace to access the second-story rear entry, which was added in 1997 along with a peaked parapet and large multi-pane glass wall. The one-story brick addition with large display windows, located to the side of the front entry, also dates from the 1960s expansion phase, and provides a clear view of the large newspaper printing press machinery housed within. This building, which originally served as Waynesboro's Presbyterian Church, was begun in 1874 and completed in 1878. Materials from an earlier Presbyterian church built in 1824 are said to have been used in its construction, and its interior walls were decoratively painted. In the 1910s the congregation moved to a new church at the corner of Eleventh and Wayne and in 1922 Max Patterson and Carl C. Loth converted the building into the Star Theatre, giving it a stage and removing the steeple in the process. The Fishburne Military School briefly used the building as a gym, and in 1940 the News- Virginian newspaper moved its offices and press room here. The paper added a rear wing designed by Hurt & Hurt Architects of Waynesboro in 1946, added a second story to that in 1963-64, and undertook a remodeling in 1997. In the 1930s a miniature golf course, pictured in Bowman vol. 2, adjoined the building (Hawke, History of Waynesboro, 68-69; Bowman, Waynesboro Days of Yore vol. 1, 85, 189-901, vol. 2, 85; and News-Vinginian, September 19, 1967; Wells and Dalton, 220-221).