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Lowell Heights Olivet REDRAFT NRform revised with plans
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III. PUBLIC HEARING b. NATIONAL REGISTER NOMINATION i. Lowell Heights - Olivet African Methodist Episcopal Church Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places
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Lowell Heights Olivet REDRAFT NRform revised with plans
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United States Department of the Interior <br />National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form <br />NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 <br /> <br />Lowell Heights-Olivet African Methodist <br />Episcopal Church <br /> St. Joseph County, IN <br />Name of Property County and State <br />Sections 9-end page 14 <br /> <br />safe (right side of photo 0010). The basement features a maple floor in a large fellowship hall <br />under the auditorium. It includes a kitchen/pass-thru in its west wall and a raised stage for <br />performances in its east wall (photos 0018, 0019, respectively). Toilet rooms also have their <br />original wood partitions and doors (photo 0020). The only minor changes include a c. 1960 <br />concrete block separation for classrooms in the basement in the transept wings (these probably <br />were divided by curtains but became permanent with block. Many of the light fixtures also seem <br />to be original. <br /> <br />Another interesting feature of the church, in terms of its site planning, is the use of a mounded <br />front grade to give it more of a presence, yet it's cut away behind the knoll (photo 0002). This <br />allows the essentially three-story building to better fit its early suburban neighborhood location, <br />something that presented itself more frequently as churches expanded into suburban locations in <br />the early 20th century where before they had often found themselves in more urban settings in <br />city and town commercial/civic areas. <br /> <br />Frank G. Dillard (1881-1949), the architect, was countering the more commonly-accepted Akron <br />Plan for church design. Dillard wrote articles and gave lectures about a more appropriate <br />approach to church architecture in Post-WWI America. This was a time when congregations in <br />many denominations were going through a building craze. Dillard favored the more traditional <br />approach of narthex, nave, transept, and chancel with classrooms at the back rather than off the <br />sanctuary with dividing walls of the Akron Plan. The Akron Plan is credited to Lewis Miller for <br />his own church design in Akron, Ohio in 1867. Miller was an amateur architect and Sunday <br />School teacher. His church, First Methodist Church of Akron, was completed in 1872. Miller’s <br />plan placed the altar in one corner of the sanctuary with sections of pews that radiated out from <br />that location. Children could also participate in services by the inclusion of large, movable screen <br />walls at one end of the sanctuary. This provided the ability to close off classroom spaces as <br />dictated by the flow of the service. Akron Plan floors are also often banked to provide better <br />sightlines for congregants. Miller’s plan was used with great regularity as Methodist <br />congregations grew and included Sunday Schools in what they offered during worship services <br />in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Therefore, it is interesting to note that Lowell Heights, a <br />Methodist Episcopal congregation, broke from the tradition of the Akron Plan in their new <br />building. Though it could be argued that transepts and balconies offered some of the <br />accommodations for Sunday School classes that the Akron Plan offered, but not formalized with <br />classroom denotation. <br /> <br />In 1921, through the Methodist Episcopal denomination, Frank Dillard issued an illustrated <br />bulletin named “Better Rural Churches” in the hope that when church communities plan for new <br />buildings, they take into consideration future growth over immediate resources. The publication <br />included three designs by Dillard. One was the conversion of a one-room church in Lakeville, <br />Ohio into a community hall and addition of a sanctuary and entry tower. Another was for a large <br />church in Cimmaron, New Mexico designed in the Mission Style. The third design was a <br />recommended prototype design for a small church with a large, front gable, side entry towers, <br />and transept/bays all in the Tudor Revival style. It is remarkably similar to the Lowell Heights <br />church. Architectural services were offered through the publication from both the
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