St. Charles Borromeo/Beaver Brook Outfitters

Beaver Brook Outfitters, North Creek, 1875
(photo 9/24/2010)

This building once St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church gives a very good sense of what the other churches built by Father James A. Kelly once looked like.

Painting a steeple isn't an easy chore but somebody should figure it out soon before more extensive work is required.

St. James Catholic Church, North Creek

St. James Catholic Church, North Creek, 1875
(photo 9/24/2010)

This appears to be a modern replacement for the original church built by Father James A. Kelly which was nearly identical to the Wevertown Church (now Beaverbrook Outfitters) and the Catholic Church of the Infant Jesus in Lake Luzerne. The Outfitters building is the only one still in existence.

Adk Churches notes that Father Kelly first met William West Durant at the dedication of this church and "their ensuing friendship  had at least some influence on Durant's later decision to support the construction of two Catholic churches in the neighborhood of Raquette Lake."

North Creek United Methodist Church

United Methodist Church of North Creek 1879
(photo 9/24/2010)

This building once had an elaborate spire extending high above the present steeple.  A simple vernacular building but with a bit more adornment than the Baptist church down the road.

First Baptist Church, North Creek

First Baptist Church, North Creek
(photo 9/24/2010)

Apparently Baptists have little interest in providing excess information about their churches. A cursory search of the internet provides little information and there is nothing in Adirondack Churches about this building.  The lack of adornment speaks to the frugality of the parish; a straight, up-right, square and solid building, mind-ful of symmetry. Note the false third story windows on the steeple and the simple practical shed roof over the entry.

St. Mary's Episcopal Church

St. Mary's Episcopal Church,  Lake Luzerne 1874-75
(photo 10/26/2008)

Congregation founded in 1865, the cornerstone was laid on August 25th 1874 and construction lasted about a year. There is a concise history at the churches website:
http://www.stmarysluzerne.org/pg_history/

The August 25th date is pertinent. To this point I haven't included many recently built churches.  Older churches seem more dignified, more architectural. Why?

Of course it is about people, the congregation, the founders.  Here in the Adirondacks congregations are often comprised of two groups; the locals and the "summer people." Often it was the tourists, the some-time Adirondackers, the people with summer camps who largely funded the construction of churches. There was and still is a divide between those groups.

More recent churches built within the Blue Line tend to glorify the architecture far less than in the past. My thesis is that these are churches built and paid for by locals opposed to the more elegant structures of the sometime residents. I expect this will be a running thread.

St Mary's built in "downtown" Lake Luzerne, directly on Rt. 9N is a good place to represent this dichotomy. More on that later.