St. Paul's Episcopal Church is an historic Carpenter Gothic

Carpenter Gothic

Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters...

 style Episcopal

Episcopal Church (United States)

The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...

 church building located on a triangular lot at 416 Southeast Grand Avenue at the corner of Fifth and Green streets in Lee's Summit, Missouri

Lee's Summit, Missouri

Lee's Summit is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri, and is contained within the counties of Jackson and Cass. As of the 2010 census found the population at 91,364 making it the sixth-largest city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area and the sixth-largest city in Missouri...

, United States. The parish was established in 1867. The original sanctuary and current building were designed by the Rev. Frederick B. Scheetz and completed in 1884. The building is a rare example of an extant wood framed Carpenter Gothic church in the state of Missouri. The interior walls and vaulted ceilings are covered with narrow strips of wood paneling set diagonally on the walls and horizontally on the ceiling. A trio of stained glass windows is set above the wooden altar in the apse at the north end of the transept. The church has received few if any alterations since it was built in 1884.

An early description of the newly built church would be accurate today: "The church is frame, 40 feet by 24, with a porch in front 8 by 10 feet, with a bell tower

Bell tower

A bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...

 extending above the roof. It is strongly and well built, with a solid stone foundation, which is so high in the rear of the church as to give room for a cellar for wood. The interior is ceiled throughout with narrow stuff put on diagonally, the timbers above do not show."'

St. Paul's Episcopal Church embodies a distinctive; type of 'vernacular' adaptation to the earlier Gothic Revival style important in church construction. Economic exigencies as well as available materials quite probably limited this Midwestern frame structure to a simple relatively small derivative of the more expansive models constructed in the eastern United States. The simple yet elegant form and decorative features of St. Paul's reflect the Midwestern 19th century philosophy of spiritual beliefs constrained by the realities of the time and place. The continuity in the structure can easily be interpreted to reflect the continuity in the religious community which began and still maintains this impressive building. St. Paul's Episcopal was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on October 9, 1985.

Current status

St. Paul's is still an active parish in the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri

Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri

The Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri, is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America with jurisdiction over western Missouri. It is in Province 7 and its cathedral, Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, is in Kansas City, Missouri, as are the diocesan offices.-Bishops of West...

. The Rev. Mark McGuire is the current rector.

http://www.stpaulsls.org/

External links

• St. Paul's Episcopal Church website