The original east section of the church, the sanctuary, was designed by Hartman-Cox to appear as a large, barnlike structure behind a preexisting house, which became the church offices. The sanctuary openly invokes nineteenth-century Carpenter's Gothic, though what appears to be board-and-batten siding is actually plywood sheets with battens added. The various forms appear additive, though the piled-up dormers on the side elevation are actually drawn from the Sisters' House at Ephrata, a German sectarian community in Pennsylvania. The design was one of the first in Virginia that might be called historical postmodern, and it was widely hailed at the time. The most recent addition, a parish house by Jack McCartney, picks up on Hartman-Cox's large gable form but without its clarity. Although its details relate to the house, the addition's overall shape resembles a stable.