Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral (Kansas City, Missouri)
| Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral | |
|---|---|
| Religion | |
| Affiliation | Episcopal Church in the United States of America |
| District | Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri |
| Year consecrated | 1898 |
| Status | Active |
| Location | |
| Location | Kansas City, Missouri, USA |
| Municipality | Kansas City |
| State | Missouri |
| Geographic coordinates | 39°05′55″N 94°35′19″W / 39.098724°N 94.588632°W |
| Architecture | |
| Architect(s) | Frederick Elmer Hill, McKim, Meade & White |
| Type | Cathedral |
| Style | Transitional Norman Gothic |
| Completed | 1895 |
| Construction cost | $100,000 |
| Specifications | |
| Capacity | 600-800 Persons |
| Length | 138 Feet |
| Width (nave) | 60 Feet |
| Height (max) | 75 Feet |
| Materials | Stone |
| Website | |
| www.ghtc-kc.org | |
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral is an Episcopal cathedral in the Quality Hill neighborhood of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, United States. It is the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri.
History
The parish that today is Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral was established on Quality Hill in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, on July 20, 1870, and initially was named "Saint Paul's Church." It was renamed "Grace Church" on April 14, 1873. The present church structure was the second building constructed for Grace Church, but the first to be built of stone. It was designed by Frederick Elmer Hill of the prominent New York City firm, McKim, Mead & White.
In the course of designing the new nave for Grace Church, Hill worked in concert with its Fifth Rector, Dr. Cameron Mann. Mann had just returned from a three-month trip to England, where he studied the many great cathedrals of that country, when he asked the Vestry of Grace Church to engage Hill as the architect for the new stone structure. Hill's design for the Nave was greatly influenced by Mann's vision after his tour of English churches and cathedrals.
The style of the building is transitional Norman Gothic, because, while the window and door frames in the building are rounded as in the Norman English style, the main arch at the top of the chancel steps is pointed, as are Gothic arches and windows. The foundations for this structure were laid in 1888, along with the foundations for Guild Hall. (That building was designed by the brothers Adriance Van Brunt and John Van Brunt, and was completed in 1890.) The interior of the nave was completed in December 1894, and the first worship service was held there on December 16, 1894. The building was consecrated on May 15, 1898. Since this church building initially was conceived as a simple parish church, it is not cruciform, with transepts, nor does it contain colonnaded aisles that flank the nave. For a long period of time, the congregation has referred to the entire structure as "the nave."
The nave of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral is 138 Feet long, 60 feet wide, and the peak of the interior roof is 75 Feet above the nave floor, which is constructed of oak in a chevron pattern. There are five aisles in the nave, and the oak pews are original to the structure. While the nave originally seated about 700 people, the removal of some pews in the front (east end) of the room, and the rearrangement of some of the remaining pews, has lowered the seating capacity to just under 600 people. With the addition of individual chairs placed over every available inch of floor space, the nave of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral is able to accommodate a congregation of close to 800 people.
It is important to understand that the interior of the Nave was never completed as Hill and Mann intended. The walls inside the room were to have been covered by a wainscot of marble with oak paneling above. The door and window frames, which stick out into the room, were to have been ornately carved. There was to have been a carved marble cornice around the top of the chancel wall, and the floor of the chancel was to have featured a marble mosaic. These plans for the completion of the nave were left unfinished due to lack of funds. After a great many years, the plans were forgotten.
However, the drab walls and unfinished door and window frames pale when one inspects the beauty of the stained glass windows in the nave. Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral is one of the most important living museums of stained glass in the United States of America. Within its walls are included a 1901 window from the studio of Otto Heinigke and Owen J. Bowen, the only example of their work in a church west of the Mississippi River; a 1903 window by Frederick Stymetz Lamb of J&R Lamb Studios; a 1911 window from Duffner and Kimberly, designed by J. Gordon Guthrie, one of the largest single windows ever produced by that firm; a window designed in 1912 by American female stained glass artist, Mary Fraser Wesselhoeft, and fabricated in January of 1913 in Berlin by Gottfried Heinersdorff (it is believed that this is the only example of Heinersdorff's work on the North American Continent); a Madonna window from the German-influenced studio of the Jacoby Art Glass Company of St. Louis, designed in 1926 by Lee Albert Cook (1888-1981); a 1930 window from Tiffany Studios that provides a kaleidoscope of colors at sunset each day; seven windows in a "Life of Christ" series designed in 1930 by English stained glass artist James Humphries Hogan; a very late Tiffany window dating from 1935, (the firm had declared bankruptcy in 1932 and was operating under the corporate name "Louis C. Tiffany Studios Corporation",) designer unknown, but in the style of Frederick Wilson; and three windows from Boston stained glass artist Dr. Charles Connick, installed and dedicated in 1943, 1944, and 1945.
In November of 1917, the parish of Grace Church was merged with another existing Episcopal church in downtown Kansas City, Trinity Church, which had been founded in 1883. The newly-merged parish was named "Grace and Holy Trinity Church". After its Rector, Robert Nelson Horatio Spencer became the Third Bishop of the Diocese of West Missouri in 1930, he worked to see that his former parish become the cathedral church of the diocese. (The Diocese of West Missouri had no cathedral from the time of its founding in 1890.) After five years, Grace and Holy Trinity Church was consecrated as the Cathedral of the Diocese of West Missouri on October 29, 1935.
After the adjacent properties around the Cathedral were acquired between 1931 and 1976, a Diocesan Center was built in 1978 on the southwest corner of the Cathedral's city block. It was designed by Stephen N. Abend. The Diocesan Center was completed in 1980 and dedicated on Saturday, May 17, 1980.
A Gabriel Kney organ was installed in the nave in 1981. The organ is Opus 94, and is one of the larger tracker action instruments Kney built. It was dedicated in a special recital by Dr. John Obetz on April 26, 1981. The organ was renovated in 2004 by D. Leslie Smith, who had assisted Kney with the original construction and installation of the instrument. In this renovation, well-worn keyboards were re-covered, the original stop knobs were replaced by new ones, and new pipework was installed to allow for some revoicing that produced an instrument of rather more warmth than the original.
In the cold night of January 22, 1986, a portion of the exterior stonework of the north wall of the nave collapsed. This was not a structural collapse, as only stones of the exterior facade of the wall were involved. However, after the entire structure was inspected, it was found that much of the mortar used in the original construction of the nave had used high proportions of sand and lime, without much concrete, and that this mortar had deteriorated to the point that it was not much more than sand. This inspection called into question the stability of the stonework at the top of all four walls of the nave. A major structural repair was immediately undertaken, during which the roof of the nave was independently supported. The congregation was displaced from its primary worship space for a period of 20 months while the repairs were made. The first worship service in the newly-renovated nave was on September 13, 1987.
In 1997, ground was broken for construction of Founders' Hall, which came into being in large part from the vision of the Dean Emeritus of the Cathedral, J. Earl Cavanaugh. It was designed by Taylor & Burns Architects. The building, which houses a large assembly room for the congregation on its main floor, with a small professional kitchen, storage, and restrooms also on that floor, and a much larger professionally-equipped kitchen on the lower level for a community soup kitchen, was completed in April 1999 and dedicated on April 10, 1999. The project won a 2000 "Millennium Design Award" from Faith & Form magazine and the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art & Architecture,[1] as well as the 1999 "Project of the Year Award" from Masonry Magazine.[2]
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral states that it is an all-inclusive parish and all are welcome to worship within its walls. It seeks to be a thriving, vital parish with deep commitment to involvement and service to the community around it. The current Dean of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral is Peter Jay DeVeau, who served as an assisting clergy at the Cathedral under Dean Cavanaugh from 1991 to 1996.
Clergy Associated With This Parish
The Rectors of Grace Church (1870-1911):
1. The Reverend Franklin Reeve Haff (1821-1906), From December 1870 to September 1871
2. The Reverend Algernon Batte (1830-1907), From January 1872 to June 1874
3. The Reverend Joseph E. Martin (1840-1900), From July 1874 to July 1876
4. The Reverend Herman Cope Duncan (1846-1920), From October 1876 to March 1880
5. The Reverend Cameron Mann (1851-1932), From February 1881 through December 1901
6. The Reverend Theodore Bogert Foster (1858-1935), From April 1902 to October 1906
7. The Reverend Julius Augustus Schaad (1866-1938), From December 1906 to August 1911
The Curates/Vicars of Grace Church (1912-1917):
1. The Reverend Henry R. Remsen (1874-1957), Curate from 1912 to 1913
2. The Reverend Benjamin Franklin Root (1873-1967), Vicar from 1914 to 1916
3. The Reverend Fuller Swift (1869-1940), Vicar from 1916 to 1917
The Rectors of Grace and Holy Trinity Church (1917-1935):
1. The Reverend Robert Nelson Horatio Spencer (1877-1961), From 1917 to 1930
2. The Reverend Claude Willard Sprouse (1888-1952), From 1931 to 1935
The Deans of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral (1935 to the Present):
1. The Very Reverend Claude Willard Sprouse (1888-1952), From 1935 to 1952
2. The Very Reverend Clarence Rupert Haden, Jr. (1910-2000), From 1953 to 1957
3. The Very Reverend Donald Robertson Woodward (1912-2006), From 1958 to 1968
4. The Very Reverend Eugene Glenn Malcolm (1919-1975), From 1968 to 1975
5. The Very Reverend J. Earl Cavanaugh (1930-2007), From 1976 to 1995
6. The Very Reverend Dennis J. J. Schmidt (b. 1951), From 1996 to 2002
7. The Very Reverend Terry Allen White (b. 1959), From 2004 to 2010
8. The Very Reverend Peter Jay DeVeau (b. 1953), Installed April 14, 2012