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Mary Dixon Chapel

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1883, Willis G. Hale
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)

Is there a more astonishing juxtaposition than this quirky Victorian church within a German eighteenth-century townscape? Built as a memorial to a student by her father, the chapel was designed by Hale, Philadelphia's “baddest” purveyor of nouveau riche excess. It was built in strident brownstone and limestone polychromy, with its detail around the entrance recalling a crude version of Frank Furness ornament, augmented by a favorite Hale motif of round-ended dormers in the roof, and a spire that towers above the entire region. By contrast with the bristling exterior, the interior is calm with the roof structure expressed by regularly spaced framing elements.

Writing Credits

Author: 
George E. Thomas
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Citation

George E. Thomas, "Mary Dixon Chapel", [Lititz, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-LA31.2.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 2

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, George E. Thomas, with Patricia Likos Ricci, Richard J. Webster, Lawrence M. Newman, Robert Janosov, and Bruce Thomas. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 325-326.

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