Grosse Pointe Memorial Church

Grosse Pointe Memorial Church, completed in 1927, is an excellent example of Neo-Gothic ecclesiastical architecture executed by a noted Detroit architect, W.E.N. Hunter. The church contains significant carvings by Alois Lang, a German carver, and stained glass by the Willet Studios.

Detroit area Protestants organized an Evangelical Society in 1816. John Monteith, a recent graduate of Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Princeton, was sent to Detroit upon request. In 1818, Monteith formed the First Evangelical Society, referred to as the First Protestant Society of Detroit. The growth of Detroit brought the forerunners of the Protestant church to Grosse Pointe to build their summer homes along Lake St. Clair.

Grosse Pointe Township was organized in 1848. George Van Ness Lothrop built the Pointe's first summer home in 1847. He and his wife Alvina were among the founders of the Protestant Evangelical Association of Grosse Pointe, which met to organize in September, 1865 after a previous attempt was interrupted by the Civil War. The Articles of Association of the Protestant Evangelical Association of Grosse Pointe stated that, "The object of this association shall be to build and maintain a place of worship on the banks of Lake St. Clair for the benefit of the Protestants of the Township." The name of the church was to be Lake St. Clair Protestant Church of Grosse Pointe, but there is no evidence that name was ever used, as it was widely known as Grosse Pointe Protestant Evangelical Church. Signers of the original act were notable Detroiters, among them Edmund Askin Brush and his wife, Elizabeth, Mary Cass Canfield, D. Bethune Duffield and his wife, Mary, George Neff and his wife, Christina, Rufus M. Kerby, and Dudley B. Woodbridge.

Services were held in area homes until a small frame carpenter Gothic church was erected at Lake Shore and Kerby Roads in 1867. The summer congregation of Grosse Pointe Evangelical Church was approximately fifty, dwindling to about twenty in the winter. Services were usually held Sunday afternoons so visiting ministers could preach in Detroit in the mornings. The church building was expanded in 1879 at a cost of $1000.00. Recognizable Detroit names - Brush, Moran, Newberry, Joy, McMillan and Ledyard - contributed time and energy to the emerging church, treating it as their own personal property. Decisions regarding church matters were made in their homes, social clubs and business offices, keeping it in their own hands. This pattern proved hard to break well into the twentieth century.

John Stoughton Newberry, who made his fortune manufacturing railroad cars, was involved in reorganizing the church under the name of Grosse Pointe Protestant Society in 1889. In 1892, the thirteen year old church was deteriorating, so the trustees decided to build a new building on the present site on Lake Shore near Fisher. Thus, the "Ivy Covered Church" was dedicated in 1894. Mason and Rice, architects, designed the timber, brick and field stone building with a capacity of 200 in the shingle (Romanesque) style at a cost of $15,449.52, to which the Newberrys contributed substantially. A frame house to its rear was purchased for the parsonage. The first resident minister, Rev. Norman W. Carey, served from 1894 through 1898.

In 1920, the congregation was reorganized as a Presbyterian affiliated body, known officially as Grosse Pointe Presbyterian Church of the Township of Grosse Pointe, and efforts began almost immediately to erect a new church. Rev. George Brewer arrived to serve the growing congregation in 1921. The community was quickly evolving into a year-round suburb of Detroit, and the church performed an increasingly important role. In addition to the practice and teaching of religion, the church was the site of Grosse Point's first circulating library and first showing of motion pictures.

In 1923, the architect W.E.N. Hunter of Detroit submitted plans for the new buildings. Hunter was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1868. Educated at the Hamilton Collegiate Institute, he worked for top Detroit architects Mortimer L. Smith, John Scott, and Mason and Rice before establishing his own practice. Known as an architect of churches, he also designed the Metropolitan Methodist Church, Trinity Lutheran Church (1931) and St. Josephat R.C. Church, the latter under the name of Kassler and Hunter, in Detroit and First Methodist Episcopal Church in Flint, Congregational Church in Benton Harbor, First Methodist Episcopal Church in Hastings, and the Methodist Episcopal Church in Escanaba. He resided in Los Angeles from 1942 until his death in 1947.

The four-part expansion of the existing "Ivy Covered Church" was completed in 1925 without materially disturbing the parsonage or the church. The new units contained a recreation and social room, stage, classrooms, organ room, and parlor. In December, 1924, Truman H. and John S. Newberry offered to pay for all costs associated with the erection of a church building and equip it, with the stipulation that the church be named the Grosse Pointe Memorial Church, in honor of their parents, John Stoughton and Helen Handy Newberry. On February 13, 1926 the final drawings from Hunter's office were received. Lewis W. Simpson, an associate of Hunter's, reportedly designed everything in the church above the floor plan. Corrick Brothers was awarded the construction contract, and on May 2, 1926 the cornerstone was laid. On May 15, 1927, the morning dedication sermon was delivered by Dr. Alfred H. Barr, former minister of Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church. The cost of the sanctuary without furnishings and glass came to $288,000. The Newberry Brothers arranged for the installation of the Aeolian Organ, since twice replaced.

Grosse Pointe Presbyterian Church expanded none too soon, for the population of Grosse Pointe Township grew from 5,607 in 1920 to 21,462 by 1930. The church membership grew accordingly, from 180 members in 1920 to 950 members by 1930. Dr. Frank Fitt, a graduate of Union Theological Seminary, replaced Dr. Brewer in 1931. Grosse Pointe Memorial Church sponsored the organization of Lochmoor Protestant Sunday School in 1937 to serve that sector of the community and alleviate overcrowding. In 1939, Lochmoor Protestant Church was organized into the Grosse Pointe Woods Presbyterian Church, which built its own building on Mack in Grosse Pointe Woods. During World War II, Grosse Pointe Memorial Church swelled to 2100 members. When Dr. Fitt resigned in 1958, his congregation numbered over 3000, and 1340 were enrolled in the Sunday school.

Property to the east of the church, owned by Seabourn Livingston, was purchased in 1955, and on May 12, 1958 it was decided to enlarge the church facilities to accommodate 16,000 square feet of space needed by the Christian Education committee. Dr. Bertram de Heus Atwood arrived in late 1959 to become minister of Memorial. Early the next year, the site plan containing the large addition was presented by architects Aloys Frank Herman and Howard Thomas Simons. A donation of $195,000 was received from the Edith Henry and Scott Barbour Fund; $700,000 more was needed. Ground was broken on February 5, 1961, the cornerstone was laid on September 9, 1961, and the addition was dedicated on April 1, 1962. This gabled wing, added to the east elevation of the church, housed the Barbour chapel, a library, Fellowship Hall and twenty-seven classrooms. The columbarium, containing 288 double niches, and memorial garden between the church and the columbarium were built in 1975.

In addition to its architecture, Grosse Pointe Memorial Church is known for the quality of its carving and windows. Its stained glass was designed and produced by the Willet Stained Glass Studios in Philadelphia. Begun in 1896 in Pittsburgh by William Willet, it moved to Philadelphia in 1912. Along with his wife, Ann Lee Willet, William Willet pioneered the revival of traditional craftsmanship and interest in medieval stained glass. Upon William's death in 1921, their son, Henry Lee Willet (1899-1983) took over as president.

Willet was given the contract to design all of the windows for the church and worked out the iconography and sketched in 1925 and 1926. They were executed as donors became available, resulting in a consistency in style and content over time that is rare. Later work, for the entrance doors (1947), the mosaic work in back of the altar (c. 1959), and the Barbour Chapel doors (c. 1962) were also commissioned by Willet Studios, adding to the continuity.

Alois Lang (1872-1954), a wood carver born in Oberammergau, Germany, learned his craft in Oberammergau, France and Italy. He executed the wood carvings on the reredos, clergy and choir stalls, lectern and pulpit of Grosse Pointe Memorial Church. Lang came to the United States in 1890 at the age of nineteen. After returning from Europe in 1901, where he spent three more years training in various studios, he worked with a Boston architect for a few years until settling in Manitowoc, Wisconsin to join a firm that later became the Architectural Woodworking Division of the American Seating Company of Grand Rapids. Among the many ecclesiastical commissions he received were Christ Church, Boston; Temple Emanu El, New York City; St. John's Church, Detroit; Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit; Shrine of the Little Flower, Detroit; and Christ Church, Cranbrook, Michigan. He retired in 1952 and died in 1954 in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the age of eighty-two.

Grosse Pointe Memorial Church is a Neo-Gothic, asymmetrically-massed edifice with walls finished in semi-coursed ashlar limestone trimmed in smooth sandstone and with a slate-covered cross-gable roof. The building consists of the church proper plus four units, constructed between 1923 and 1927, and the education wing, completed in 1962 (see diagram). The church consists of a nave with short transepts framed at the rear by three-story, cross-gable roof wings on either side, whose junctions with the main edifice are marked by a massive, soaring square bell tower. The north-facing front facade of the church is composed of a primary front-gabled unit. The side elevations extend four bays and are defined by paired stained-glass clerestory windows separated by buttress piers. The interior of the church is laid out in a Latin cross plan, with a large central nave that rises to a stone ribbed and vaulted ceiling. The low side aisles are separated from the nave by masonry pillars supporting the high clerestories above the equilateral-arched openings, while the stained glass windows in the clerestory are enframed by stone surrounds. The organ and choir loft are situated in a balcony in the narthex, while additional balconies flank the front portion of the nave. The chancel and sanctuary occur beneath open stone arches. The three story cross-gabled units to the east and west of the church proper present broad arched entry doors while fenestration consists of flat-topped diamond-pane windows separated by masonry spandrels. The gabled addition to the east was designed to blend with the original building in 1960.

Grosse Pointe Memorial Church is located on the south side of Lake Shore Drive across the street from Grosse Pointe Farm's earliest subdivision (Beverly and McKinley), just west of the Grosse Pointe War Memorial and in front of the Little Club on the shores of Lake St. Clair. Its location at a curve in the road makes it visually prominent in both directions of Lake Shore Drive.

Grosse Pointe Memorial Church is approached from the side, up three stone steps to a stone platform and then up three more steps on axis to the pair of entrance doors flanked by old English-style lanterns. Tracery panels next to the ground at water table level flank the main entrance, apparently influenced by large churches on the east coast of England. The name, "Grosse Pointe Memorial Church," is inscribed over the doors above the moldings and heraldic shields. The stone between the inscription and the large opening above is richly carved with foliation, grapes, and vines. The arched part of the massive opening emerges as a compound arch from its smooth straight sides. Above this opening is a frontal gable; to each side of it are two buttressed wall sections stepping down in height and back in depth. Like the frontal gable, each of these sections is pierced only with a slender opening.

Shallow transept arms extend from the east and west elevations of the church, each punctured in its end wall by a large, richly traceried window at gallery level, above smaller tracery windows. The nave's side walls' four bays bear Tudor-arched clerestory windows with groups of lancet aisle windows below. The massive tower, located at the junction of the church with the more utilitarian unit behind, is seventy-eight feet high. It displays louvered belfry arches and a crenelated masonry parapet. The carillon bells were cast by Gillett & Johnston, bell founders, of Croyden, England.

In plan, the church is a Latin cross, adapted to non-liturgical worship. The entrance doors into the narthex contain a pair of extraordinary doors containing twenty-four stained glass panels depicting "The Quest of the Holy Grail." They were donated in memory of Mr. James Thayer McMillan and were made by Henry Willet of Philadelphia in 1947. The large stained glass window over the entrance, the Lodge Memorial Window, depicts the Resurrection. It is now hidden by the installation of the Klais Organ in the choir loft in 1989. The stone narthex memorial screen carries an inscription in the Newberrys' memory.

Beyond the narthex is a large central nave that rises to a stone ribbed and vaulted ceiling containing Guastavina acoustical tile and antique hanging chandeliers. High clerestory windows enframed with stone surrounds flood the nave with light. Gothic pillars separate the low and narrow side aisles from the nave and leave an unobstructed view of the pulpit. The altar is set within an arched chancel area. There are also no pillars in the transept. Traceried stone staircases leading to galleries in the transepts are unusual in their cloister-like effect leading up from the side aisles.

Significant carving in wood can be seen throughout the church. The chancel features the dark carved oak of the clergy and choir stalls, reredos, pulpit and communion table. Byzantine-style Mosaic work in the chancel was designed and executed by Willet Stained Glass Co. around 1959, to correspond with the locations of the new organ pipes and openings for the Moller organ, installed in 1959 to replace the original 1927 Aeolian organ.

Other units surrounding the church, those built shortly before it as well as the later addition, mimic the roof line of the church, with similarly pitched gables and slopes. Compound window arches, heavy stone tracery, and grouped windows with stone mullions characterize the variety and multitude of openings. The whole complex of units results in a unified composition, as the first five units were planned at one time and the later addition, completed in 1962, showed extreme sensitivity to the original design.

The interiors of those units of the building designed in the 1920's were more utilitarian in design but reflected the dignity of religious purpose. Shallow stone arches distinguish one section of hallway from another, first floor hallways have chair rails, doors are of hard wood, and there is a Pewabic tile drinking fountain just outside the sanctuary.