Architect William P. Hutchins certainly made the most of the site. He had a hillside location, a prominent intersection, and a lot of space to work with, so he oriented the building diagonally and gave the church a west front (liturgically speaking) that hits us with an outsized magnificence as we come up California Avenue. The church was built in 1927; the style is Perpendicular Gothic, and already shows some signs of the streamlining that would mark Hutchins’ later works. (To see how far he would take that streamlining, have a look at Resurrection Church in Brookline, one of Hutchins’ last churches.)
Shields in relief over the three main doors honor important saints with their symbolic attributes.
The cornerstone. The Latin inscription says, “This is the house of God and the gate of heaven.”
Old Pa Pitt noticed that Wikimedia Commons had no current pictures of landmarks in the very pleasant neighborhood of Brighton Heights, except for a few pictures of the Sacrifice monument, most of them taken by Father Pitt. That lacuna has now been filled, and we will be seeing many of the pictures in the next couple of weeks.
