St. Stephen's Church
- Architect
- Charles Bulfinch
- Year
- 1804
- Style
- Federal
- City
- Boston, MA
- Collections
- bulfinch’s bostonfederal boston
St. Stephen's Church is a red-brick Federal-style church in Boston's North End, built in 1802-1804 as the New North Meeting House to designs by Charles Bulfinch. It's the only one of the five churches Bulfinch designed in Boston that still stands. The Congregationalist society turned Unitarian in 1813, and in 1862 the Catholic Diocese bought the building and renamed it St. Stephen's.
the building
Facade and tower. The church is built of red brick with white stone pilasters across the front, rising to a clock tower and belfry. Three days after its 1804 dedication, the Columbian Centinel called the front "bold and commanding," pointing to its composed-order stone pilasters and the tier of attic pilasters above them.
the style
Bulfinch worked here in the Federal style, the young republic's answer to Georgian classicism, favoring a restrained brick facade animated by white stone pilasters and trim -- exactly the combination described in contemporary accounts of the front.
More on Federalthe architect
Charles Bulfinch was Boston's foremost early-republic architect; St. Stephen's, built 1802-1804, is the sole survivor of five churches he designed in the city.
significance
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and restored in 1964-1965 by Chester F. Wright, after passing from Congregationalist to Unitarian use and then, since 1862, to the Roman Catholic Diocese.
nearby
- Old North Church & Campus
- Mariners House
- Paul Revere House
- Pierce–Hichborn House
- Vermont Building
- Union Oyster House