Lowell Heights-Olivet National Register Nomination and site plans

Home Browse Search

United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 Lowell Heights-Olivet African Methodist Episcopal Church St. Joseph County, IN Name of Property County and State Sections 9-end page 15 denomination’s Chicago and Philadelphia offices, but only if an architect was unavailabe in the community and the project was under $20,000 in construction costs. This may be why Dillard’s own work is seldom accounted for, and it is unclear why Lowell Heights, at a cost of over $40,000 in a city with architects, was designed by Dillard. Dillard also provided a five-page discertation on proper church building design in a 1922 publication on church architecture. He describes situations in which congregations fall into the use of the Akron Plan or “some other scheme that is utterly inadequate” for its needs.1 He co- wrote an article for The Architectural Forum with Elmo Cameron Lowe (of Lowe & Bollenbacher, architects in Chicago) in April 1924 titled “The Small Church”. The article calls on better architectural design of churches and describes the previous period of church building and design a “period of artistic depression”.2 The article goes into specific recommendations on design including stone-trim on brick edifices, dark interiors, and open trusses. Illustrations and photographs of the Tudor Gothic style Methodist Episcopal Church in Whiting (designed by Lowe & Bollenbacher) are included in the article. It is unclear how many churches were constructed through the denomination's Bureau of Architecture, but the Lowell Heights church seems to be a notable one based on its refinements, counter approach to the Akron Plan, and its early origin (designed in 1922 after the bureau's start in 1919). Dillard first practiced architecture in a firm known as Dillard & Stephans in St. Louis in about 1907-1909. In Chicago, he was in the partnership of Dillard & Brown during the 1910s, and Rowe, Dillard, & Rowe during the 1920s. Several large Tudor Revival homes were designed by the firm, including the Grigsby Estate, and the Park Ridge Methodist Church, Park Ridge, IL. He worked for the Chicago Park System during the 1930s for whom he designed the 55th Street Promontory Pavilion. The Gothic Revival style had been popularized in house design books in the middle part of the 1800s and became popular in Midwestern towns by the 1850s due to the influence of pattern books produced during this time. The pattern books gave hints for other building types. A.J. Davis’ Rural Residences (1837) included a design for a Gothic Revival “Village Church” as well as Gothic Revival houses. A religious revival in Britain in the early 19th century renewed interest in church construction and in the English Gothic style. In religious architecture, Gothic Revival reached full expression in the United States. While Gothic Revival remained a popular choice with American congregations, toward the end of the century, architects were moving away from generic Gothic and the more recent Romanesque Revival. Interest in Tudor Gothic Revival was capturing attention. Collegiate Gothic, inspired by Tudor Gothic architecture took hold at places like Bryn Maur (Pembroke Hall, Stewardson & Cope, 1894). New churches by Medievalist Ralph Adams Cram helped set the trend. For example, All Saints, Ashmont, Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1893, was a purely English-inspired Gothic church. Given the popularity of the Gothic Revival style in church design, it is no surprise that a city the size of South Bend would have several examples of Gothic Revival churches. There are approximately a dozen examples of Gothic Revival churches ranging from impressive, early 1 Dillard, Frank. 2 Lowe & Dillard