Photo credit:
Breck Chapman, 02/2004
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Lovely Lane Methodist Church
Inventory No.:
B-17
Date Listed:
5/25/1973
Location:
2200 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore, Baltimore City
Category:
Building
Period/Date of Construction:
1884-1887
Architect/Builder:
Architect: Stanford White
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Description:
Lovely Lane Methodist Church is built in the Romanesque style of the early churches and basilicas in Ravenna, Italy. The entire exterior is constructed of a gray ashlar rock-face Port Deposit granite, creating an effect of massiveness broken only by strictly limited ornamentation. There are deep porticos on both the south and east façades, with round arches and columns, and wide flights of stairs. Small rows of leaded windows penetrate the walls in the apse and at the clerestory level. There is a simple projecting stone cornice. The east and west end walls curve out to form the bases of semiconical sections of roof. The roof is covered with carved S-shaped Spanish tiles of Roman Red color. The most outstanding exterior feature is the square bell tower patterned after the campanile of the 12th-century church of Santa Maria, Abbey of Pomposa, near Ravenna. It rises in nine tiers of narrowing perimeter separated by string courses, with small windows, corner pinnacles, and a conical roof. The pulpit is a reproduction of the one at St. Apollinaris, in Ravenna.
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Significance:
This church derives its significance from both its architectural merit and its religious history. Considered one of Baltimore’s outstanding architectural monuments, it is also known as the Mother Church of American Methodism. The architectural significance of the Lovely Lane Methodist Church is based on its design by Stanford White, one of America’s foremost architects.
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