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.

Saint Mary's Church, Indian Lake

Saint Mary's Church, Indian Lake
(photo 9/26/2010)

I don't really know much about architectural styles. To me this is a modern style sort of prow-roofed cross between a chalet and a ranch done free of excess ornament in yellowish brick. I have no information on this building but I am guessing it was built after Vatican 2.

There are few examples of a real sort of regional style that I have found in churches so there is no reason to think of these more modern churches as being odd in the context of the Adirondacks except that maybe brick as an exterior doesn't ring true to the Adk aesthetic. Still this looks a well built solid, proud yet unassuming structure. Some of the newer churches move further from pride in appearance to downright solid and homely.

I am not sure what it is that these buildings say about  the communities of people  who built them, use them or live in the community with them. How have these people changed over time and what does the architecture say about that.

I hope that some of these questions will resolve themselves for me over time.

St John's in the Wilderness, Paul Smiths

St John's in the Wilderness Episcopal Church, Paul Smiths 1927
(photos 9/26/2010)

Adirondack Churches, by Sally Svenson devotes a chapter to Church Design for Summer Residents and Visitors and St John's figures prominently. The original church was a log building built in 1877 designed by George Hathorne of New York city.  Fundraising for the new church was led by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, who I believe is buried behind the present church. The idea of building with logs was novel for wealthy visitors who enjoyed the spending time as rustics while on vacation from the city.
Locals preferred to more sophisticated construction if it could be afforded.

The original church burned down in 1927 and was replaced with a  more fire resistant stone church in a medieval English style designed by William Distin of Saranac Lake.

This is also the final resting place of Clifford R. Pettis a Cornell University Forester who is named as "the father of reforestation" in New York State. Pettis was Superintendent of State Forests from 1910 to 1927 a time when much of the Adirondacks was a deforested wasteland prone to fire and erosion.

Deer Meadows, Inlet

Okay, so this isn't a house of worship but I love the sign. And they have a phone booth. Retro.

St. Bartholomew Catholic Church, Old Forge

St Bartholomew Catholic Church, Old Forge
(photo 11/19/2010)

The cornerstone gives a date of May 3, 1991 for this building which is undergoing some minor renovation.  The internets give a founding date of 1897 for the parish and the current building apparently replaces a spectacular Queen Anne style wood-frame structure built in 1899 which had an ornate if somewhat grotesque tower reaching skyward like some sort of pagoda rocket.

The current arch glulam and brick building says oh-so 1991 though some of the furnishings may have been salvaged from an older church. An odd eclecticism.