Highland United Methodist Church

The Highland Methodist Church is architecturally significant as a well-preserved example of a Victorian Gothic chapel with all of its detailing intact. It is historically significant as the home of a continuously operating institution important in the cultural life of rural Oakland County. Architecturally, the church is a well-preserved, wooden, Victorian church of its period. It is remarkable primarily for the fact that it has been so little altered when most other churches of this type in Michigan have had their delicate scrollsaw detailing removed and towers altered. It is the principal architectural landmark in Highland Village. The addition which was moved to the site and adjoined to the rear of the church in 1946 is the old Hickory Ridge School building built about 1835 as a rural one-room schoolhouse. Historically the church is interesting for its long service to the Highland Village community. The Methodist congregation met in the Hickory Ridge School until 1886 when sufficient funds had been raised to erect the present structure. A design was selected and local carpenter Lester St. John was contracted to erect the building for $1,273. The congregation was responsible for providing the field stone foundation walls. The building was begun in the spring and completed by November of 1886. The design was probably copied from a periodical or pattern book. The congregation made few alterations in the church over the years and continued to meet in the building until recently when Highland Township acquired the property. The Township intends to adaptively reuse the building as the township library while maintaining its historical architectural integrity.

The Highland Methodist Church is located in the unincorporated village of Highland in Oakland County, approximately seventeen miles west of Pontiac in the center of Highland Township. Highland Village is a small, rural hamlet composed of mostly nineteenth-century commercial structures, churches and residences arranged informally along a few streets near the intersection of two important nineteenth century county thoroughfares, Highland and Milford roads. The church is prominently sited on Livingston Road just south of the center of the village across from the municipal fire station, township hall, elementary and junior high schools and the post office. It is a rectangular, gable-roofed, clapboarded structure, measuring 28 x 42 feet, with a tower projecting from the northeast corner. A gable-roofed, one-story, building, measuring 24 x 38 feet, was moved to the site in 1946 and adjoined to the rear to serve as a parish hall. Another small frame addition was made to the rear east elevation in 1957. The main church is painted yellow with contrasting chocolate brown trim. The Victorian Gothic style church structure has elaborate scrollsaw decoration at the window heads, in the front gable and on the tower. The tall narrow windows are fitted with the original wooden louvered blinds on the exterior. The square tower is capped with a steep, shingled spire interrupted at mid-point by a louvered belfry above which the tall spire, enriched with bands of ornamental shingling, tapers to a point crowned by a metal weathervane. The double-door church entrance in the base of the tower is sheltered by a gabled, scrollsaw-ornamented hood. The 1946 extension to the rear is a plain, clapboarded structure with a large bank of sash windows on the east elevation. In contrast to the fancifully ornamented exterior, the interior of the church is severely plain. Wallpapered plaster walls, wooden floors, simple woodwork, vertical board wainscoting and two molded plaster ceiling medallions comprise the interior finishes. The sanctuary, or altar end, of the small auditorium is architecturally defined only by a raised platform. The furnishings include the original wooden pews with scrolled ends and Victorian Gothic style lectern, altar and chairs. The parish hall added to the rear in 1946 is a single, plainly-finished room with a beamed ceiling. The 1957 addition includes classrooms and a kitchen.