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Grace United Methodist Church

Church organizations in St. Louis have a habit of moving, but few have taken their buildings with them the way Grace did.  Grace began as a chapel on the west side of Newstead Avenue just south of Lindell, and the official organization under the name of Lindell Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church occurred at the first service there on November 20, 1892.  The main church on the corner was started in 1896 and dedicated on January 31, 1897.

The architects were Link, Rosenheim & Ittner.  Theodore C. Link (1850-1923) was born in Wimpfen, Germany and studied in Europe before coming to this country in 1870.  He had recently made his name with the design for Union Station, and this church shares its Romanesque Revival style, which Link was to use again at Second Presbyterian Church nearby.  His short-lived partnership with Alfred Rosenheim and William B. Ittner produced at least one other notable design, the large house at 3435 Hawthorne in Compton Heights.  As the Romanesque fashion waned, Link moved on to other styles; his office building for Roberts, Johnson & Rand (later International Shoe; 1501 Washington) was inspired by Louis Sullivan, while the three adjacent mansions at 7100, 7104 and 7108 Delmar for members of the Rand and Johnson families are Georgian, Tudor, and French Renaissance, respectively.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral Parish organized right across Lindell in 1896, and after the massive New Cathedral began to go up in 1907, the Methodists started to make plans to move west.  Instead of calling Link back, the church turned to a member, Frederick C. Bonsack (1859-1917), a contractor who had developed a varied architectural practice.  Bonsack was married to Lennie (actually Helen) Niedringhaus, whose Methodist father was president of the company that developed Granite City, Illinois, and Bonsack did much of the design work there.  He also designed the Lindell Avenue house of former Lieutenant Governor Edwin O. Standard, who contributed the land at Skinker and Waterman for the new church.  The new building was not actually a replica of the old but a mirror image, since the orientation of the new site was so different.  Construction of the new building went on as the old one was being disassembled, so stones from the tops of the old walls became the bottoms of the new walls.  The renamed church was dedicated on October 11, 1914.

Inside, the auditorium repeats the old one, including the hand-carved black birch pews arranged in the amphitheater pattern that was becoming old-fashioned by 1914.  Gothic fans decorates the vaults that rise from four monumental arches.  The chancel arch, reminiscent of the Great Hall at Union Station, is set with a plaster relief, The Glorification of the Virgin, by sculptor Robert P. Bringhurst of St. Louis.  The large Ascension window, a memorial to Lennie’s uncle, is by Tiffany.  Other windows are by Jacoby and Emil Frei.  The marble baptismal font was carved in Rome, and its flowers honor Violet and Marguerite (a French daisy), the daughters of John W. Kauffman, Standard’s brother-in-law.  Among the more unusual decorations to be found is a fragment of the Great Wall of China, set into the interior west wall of the church.

The excellent acoustics of the space have been recognized by the St. Louis Symphony, which held its Monday evening chamber music concerts here for many years.  The Chamber Chorus performed here here first in December 1979, and more recently in April 2005 and September 2006.