Keene Unitarian Universalist Church listed in the National Register of Historic Places

The N.H. Division of Historical Resources has announced that the United States Secretary of the Interior has listed the Keene Unitarian Universalist Church in the National Register of Historic Places for its outstanding architecture.

The Keene Unitarian Universalist Church’s sanctuary and attached parish hall ell, built simultaneously in 1894, illustrate a transition between two architectural styles: Late Gothic Revival, which rose to popularity in the United States beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, and Tudor Revival, which remained popular through the 1920s and 1930s.

The building’s exterior incorporates granite walls and buttresses, stucco and false timbering on gable ends, diamond-paneled leaded glass windows, numerous gabled-roof dormers and a crenelated granite corner bell tower.

Granite quarried in nearby Roxbury, N.H., was used for the foundation and first story exterior walls. The rough-cut face of the stone was deliberately placed facing out for a more rustic look.

The bell tower located on the church’s gable-front façade contains a Paul Revere bell, one of only 28 in New Hampshire. Weighing 1,500 pounds, with a 43-inch diameter at its bottom and 24 inches at the top, it is one of the largest bells made by the foundry.

The interior walls of the church’s sanctuary are finished with fine-grained, white-painted stucco and have dark wood beadboard wainscotting. Six original timber trusses with flat-bottomed chords span its width. The pews, imported from Paris, are original to the church.

A Tiffany “Truth” window portraying Truth with the Key of Knowledge around its neck was installed behind the pulpit in 1900. It is one of only eight Truth windows designed by Frederick Wilson, head of the Ecclesiastical Department at Tiffany. Wilson also created four windows still installed in the chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy and had others exhibited at two World’s Fairs: Chicago (1893) and Paris (1900).

Among several plaques dedicated to church members is the Edwards Memorial plaque, the only known public work in stone by Keene native Francis Barrett Faulkner (1881-1966), the most prominent muralist of the first half of the twentieth century.

Construction of the church – which began in April 1894 and was completed that summer – was accelerated by steam power, the newest building technology at the time. A steam shovel excavated the site and dug the basement, and a steam hoisting machine and large derrick were placed at the center of the operation to move granite blocks into place.

Constructed in 1960, the modern-style education wing added at the rear of the building incorporates exterior materials from the original church design, including stucco. A prefabricated building material, Skywall, which sandwiches two layers of fiberglass separated by dead air space and is supported by aluminum channels, allows translucent light to penetrate, providing passive solar warming on sunny days.

Architect Edwin James Lewis, Jr. (1859-1937) designed the church and parish hall, one of 35 churches he designed for Unitarian congregations in the U.S. and Canada. His smaller-sized Christ Church in Dorchester, Mass., served as a template for the Keene church and the same design with modifications was used for Unitarian churches in Braintree and Hopedale, Mass.

In addition to being the architect for the church’s education wing, Arthur M. Doyle (1921-2004) co-designed the United States post office in Salem, N.H., several buildings on the campus of Franklin Pierce University in Rindge and was active in Keene’s Main Street redevelopment plans in 1971.

Keene Unitarian Universalist Church was listed in the N.H. State Register of Historic Places in 2021.

In New Hampshire, listing to the National Register makes applicable property owners eligible for grants such as the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program or LCHIP (lchip.org) and the Conservation License Plate Program (nhdhr.dncr.nh.gov/grants-incentives/conservation-license-plate-grant-program).

For more information on the National Register program in New Hampshire, please visit nhdhr.dncr.nh.gov or contact the Division of Historical Resources at 603-271-3583. 

New Hampshire's Division of Historical Resources, the State Historic Preservation Office, was established in 1974 and is part of the N.H. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. NHDHR’s mission is to preserve and celebrate New Hampshire’s irreplaceable historic resources through programs and services that provide education, stewardship, and protection. For more information, visit us online at nhdhr.dncr.nh.gov or by calling 603-271-3483.

###