Former Parochial School Building in Chicago IL

St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School, Chicago Illinois

Date added: August 29, 2024

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Illinois
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St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church is located in a section of the Lower West Side known informally as Heart of Chicago. Located west of Damen, near Cermak Road (formerly 23^rd Street), Heart of Chicago was the location of the largest German community in the Lower West Side, which developed rapidly during the 1860s and 1870s. Several important institutions served the neighborhood's residents, including St. Matthew and St. Paul Roman Catholic Church, located two blocks to the south at 22^nd Place and Hoyne Avenue.

St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church was one of several churches established on the northwest and southwest sides of Chicago during the nineteenth century by the Lutheran Church of Missouri, Ohio and other States, now known as the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. With the first Lutheran church in Chicago established in 1847, Lutheranism was the most prominent Protestant denomination in Chicago during the late 1800s, catering to those immigrant groups, including Germans and Swedes, from countries where Lutheranism was a strong presence. The denomination grew rapidly in Chicago, from fewer than 500 members in 1850 to 75,000 in 1870.

Several Lutheran synods, or associations of Lutheran churches, were represented by individual congregations in Chicago. The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod was the largest of these. Founded in Chicago in 1847 and headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, practically all early members of the Missouri Synod were German immigrants and their children. All activities, including church services and classes, were held exclusively in German. German immigration to Chicago rapidly increased after the Civil War, until by 1900 close to one-fourth of Chicago's population was estimated to be German by birth or heritage. The Missouri Synod was attractive to many of these Chicagoans. By 1881, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod had 13 churches in Chicago. By 1895, the Missouri Synod had 30 churches and 55,552 members in Chicago, and 41 churches by 1907. Most of these churches, including St. Matthew, were located in working-class neighborhoods such as the Lower West Side that were home to the many German-born workers whose livelihood was tied to the many nearby factories.

Nineteenth-century German Protestant immigrants saw religious instruction as the heart of education. In his study of German Lutheran churches in Chicago, Sharvy Umbeck notes that G. H. Loeber, an early German Lutheran settler in the Midwest, stated that one of the main reasons many German Protestants had for emigrating to America was "to avoid having children trained in schools which do not teach Christianity." The first constitution of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, instituted in 1847, granted great autonomy to individual churches, but required the establishment of a parochial school as a prerequisite for membership. Individual Lutherans were expected to send their children to the local parochial church. It was not mandatory, but was stated as a moral responsibility that parents accepted upon having children. As an early twentieth-century writer noted,

The Christian day school is a most important and necessary institution to assure the sound progressive development and the stability of our congregations. Congregations that do not establish day schools for their children and engage Christian teachers to teach them commit a grievous sin. Parents who send their children to public schools in preference to their own parish schools are equally culpable. Congregations that are not willing to establish schools should be duly admonished, and if such admonition is not needed shall be expelled from the Synod. It is the duty of the church to provide well trained and qualified teachers for the parish schools.

Dominated by ethnic Germans and conservative in its doctrine, Missouri Synod Lutheranism believed that it was the repository of the "true faith" and that the church had a strong responsibility, along with parents, to protect and nurture the proper spiritual lives of children through the establishment of parochial schools. Therefore, the creation of church schools was an important activity of the Missouri Synod. Often, a church school would be established in a neighborhood before the church itself. During the nineteenth century, instruction was in German and liberally laced with religious teachings. These church schools provided a bulwark against rapid assimilation into American society and the loss of German Lutheran identity. These parochial schools, with their use of German and their emphasis on the "pure doctrine" of Lutheranism, also was seen by Missouri Synod churches as a barrier to the swelling tides of "Americanism." By educating children in church schools, the Missouri Synod hoped to insulate them from influences, both secular and religious, that might tempt them away from the beliefs of Missouri Synod Lutheranism. A 50th-anniversary book published by St. Matthew, Zum Goldenum Jubilaum der Evang. Luth. St. Matthaus-Gemeinde, stated, "Our Synod has always encouraged the establishment of such schools and seen to it that Christian teachers are trained to lead these schools."

St. Matthew was the eighth Missouri Synod church established in Chicago, an offshoot of Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church at 19^th and Johnson street, farther east in the Lower West Side. Typical of the Missouri Synod, a mission church school was established first, in 1869 in a building at Paulina Street and 21^st Place. In September 1871, 30 families belonging to Immanuel but living near the mission school split off from the parent church and founded St. Matthew. The first church building, a frame Gothic Revival building, was built in 1872 at the northwest corner of 21^st Street and Hoyne Avenue. The new church's basement was equipped to house the church school, which moved there from the older Paulina Street school building. No longer needed, this school building was sold and converted to commercial use.

The increased movement of Chicagoans into the neighborhood during the 1870s, many of whom were German, brought about increased school attendance and expansion. Directly to the west of the church itself, a two-story brick school building with two classrooms was constructed in 1876, next to the pastor's house. Then, in 1882, an additional school building (the current structure) was constructed across 21^st Street from the church. Built for $12,000, it was dedicated on October 1^st, 1882. The architect remains unknown.

Later History of St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School

In 1887, St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church burned down. It was rebuilt as a brick church with stone trim to the designs of Chicago architect Frederick Ahlschlager. Ten years later, in 1897, the two-story brick school built in 1876 and located to the west of the church was rebuilt as a three-story school building.

St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church was a well-established church at the turn of the century with approximately 3,000 members. However, enrollment in the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School gradually declined through the early years of the twentieth century. In the late 1870s, the school had had 996 children and 9 teachers. By the 1920s, it had declined enough that instruction was consolidated in the 1882 school building and the 1897 building was remodeled as a one-story gymnasium and hall. Then, in 1962, the school was closed entirely. Dwindling enrollments, combined with the projected expense of upkeep and renovation, were the reasons for this decision.

In general, this history of slow decline mirrors the larger history of Missouri Synod parochial schools in Chicago. As German immigration declined during the early 1900s, the number of families wanting to send their children to a German-speaking parochial school declined as well. In 1902, 8,780 students studied in 34 schools. During the twentieth century, the number of students declined despite the increased number of schools. In 1910, Missouri Synod parochial schools contained only 6,874 students, spread among 39 schools. By 1920, this number had declined to 6,224 students in 39 schools, and by 1930, total enrollment had dropped to 5,823 students despite having 44 schools in Chicago. This decline continued during the Great Depression, with 5,450 students enrolled in 43 schools by 1938.

The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School building remained in the possession of St. Matthew for several years after its closing, and was used for Sunday School classes and as the pastor's office until 1965, when it was sold to the Living Word of Faith Community Pentecostal Church. In 1998, the building was bought by its current owner and rehabilitation into loft apartments began. The school building remains a fine example of an Italianate-style school building, unusual in the context of Chicago architecture.

The Italianate Style and St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School

The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School at 21^st Street and Hoyne Avenue, constructed in 1882, was built in the Italianate style, a popular and widespread architectural style in the United States from approximately 1850 to 1890. It was especially common in Midwestern cities and towns such as Chicago, which were growing rapidly during the years of the style's popularity.

The Italianate style began in England as part of the Picturesque movement, which was a reaction to the formality of Neoclassicism and the Greek Revival, dominant stylistic movements in both Europe and North America during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. John Nash's villa at Cronkhill and the Regents Park Village in London are early examples of buildings based on the visually charming villas, farmhouses, and other buildings of rural northern Italy, the original inspiration for the style. The American architect Alexander Jackson Davis designed several Italianate-style houses as illustrations for Andrew Jackson Downing's books extolling suburban and country living. Many of these early Italianate buildings, built before the Civil War, were closely patterned after the asymmetrical forms, projecting verandahs, and tall towers associated with rural Italian villas. Henry Austin's Victoria Mansion for R.S. Morse in Portland, Maine, built in 1859, is an outstanding example from this early period.

But the Italianate style also was used for a wide variety of building types other than houses, including commercial and institutional buildings, and the style was adapted to working-class buildings as well during its years of popularity. The style's visual characteristics therefore could vary greatly depending upon the expansiveness of the site and the available budget. The most common characteristics associated with the Italianate style were round-arched windows, doors and porch openings and brackets, often paired, that visually supported projecting cornices. Hipped roofs were commonly used, often paired with cupolas. Although frame Italianate-style houses and small commercial buildings were not uncommon, most Italianate-style buildings in Chicago were built of brick or stone, often with contrasting trim. Proportions were vertical, with high, narrow windows. In urban areas such as Chicago, where high land values and building costs encouraged regularity of building form, most Italianate buildings were cubic in overall form, with regular, often symmetrical facades. Red brick walls with light-colored limestone trim, prominent window and door moldings, and projecting pressed metal cornices were common elements among Chicago Italianate-style buildings.

The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School is a late example of the use of the Italianate style for an institutional building, in this case a parochial school. The Romanesque Revival was becoming more popular for such buildings in Chicago during the 1880s. Yet it remains a good example of the style as used for a Chicago school. Its overall symmetry, dark brick walls contrasting with light stone trim, tall, double-hung windows with rounded lintels, Classical door surrounds, cornice supported by double brackets, and central cupola with stylized Classical ornament are all common aspects of the Italianate style as used in Chicago. St. Matthew is not an elaborate example of the style. Its construction by a working-class congregation precluded much elaborate ornament. Yet it clearly expresses through its materials, forms and overall composition the characteristics of the Italianate style.

The Italianate style was most commonly used in Chicago for residential and commercial buildings. Houses and flat buildings of the 1860s through the 1880s especially were constructed in the style throughout Chicago, with many surviving examples in community areas such as Lincoln Park, West Town, and the Lower West Side. Store buildings along major shopping streets such as Milwaukee Avenue and 18^th Street also provide visual evidence of the style's popularity during the years following the Chicago Fire of 1871.

However, relatively few examples of Italianate-style schools survive in Chicago. Only three other Italianate-style schools were identified by the Chicago Historic Resources Survey, conducted by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and the Chicago Department of Planning and Development between 1983 and 1996, in the St. Matthew School's immediate context, the Lower West Side and the adjacent community areas of the Near West Side, Near South Side, Armour Square, Bridgeport, McKinley Park, Brighton Park, South Lawndale and North Lawndale. These three schools are the oldest section of the Ward Public School, located at 2703 - 09 South Shields Avenue in the Armour Square community area; the oldest section of the McClellan Public School, at 3505 - 11 South Wallace Avenue in the Bridgeport community area; and the Mark Sheridan Public School at 2711 South Wallace Avenue, also in Bridgeport. All three possess characteristics of the Italianate style, with dark brick walls contrasting with light stone trim and projecting metal cornices supported by brackets. Ward has round-arched windows with contrasting stone lintels, while McClellan and Sheridan have flat-headed windows, also with contrasting stone lintels. All three form the nucleus of larger school complexes, with large additions from the first decade of the twentieth century.

Nineteenth-century Chicago schools and the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School is one of the oldest school buildings remaining in Chicago and possesses both the physical characteristics common to nineteenth-century schools and good integrity. Fred E. H. Schroeder, in his essay on schoolhouses published in Built in the U.S.A: American Buildings from Airports to Zoos, noted that the basic form of nineteenth-century school buildings in the United States was defined in a short work on school architecture by William A. Alcott, published in 1832. In Alcott's view, an ideal school house contained large, high-ceilinged classrooms, large windows providing good light and air circulation, and adequate playgrounds. This basic building program became the standard for school building construction through the rest of the century.

St. Matthew is a survivor from the late nineteenth century, a time when Chicago was growing rapidly and the need for new schools seemed never-ending. The noted Chicago architectural historian Carl Condit quotes Chicago Board of Education statistics that the city built 169 public school buildings between 1871 and 1900. The number of private schools, including church schools, was also large. Based on information gathered by the Chicago Historic Resources Survey, certain common physical characteristics of Chicago schools during this period can be identified. They commonly were two to four stories in height and built with load-bearing exterior walls of brick, usually red. Facades were symmetrical, with central entrances embellished with ornament. Windows were tall and narrow. Classrooms, the number of which could vary, opened off central corridors, dominated by wooden staircases. St. Matthew is a good example of this basic building type.

Within the immediate context of the Lower West Side and adjacent community areas of the Near West Side, Near South Side, Armour Square, Bridgeport, McKinley Park, Brighton Park, South Lawndale and North Lawndale, 35 public and private elementary and high schools built before 1940 were documented by the Chicago Historic Resources Survey. Of these, only 14 were built, all or in part, before 1900. Of these 14, only four are older than the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School.

The oldest of these four schools also is the oldest documented school building in Chicago, St. Ignatius College Preparatory, a private Catholic school located at 1072 West Roosevelt Road in the Near West Side community area. It was designed by Toussaint Menard in 1867 in the Second Empire style. The other three schools are public schools built by the Chicago Board of Education. The original section of the Ward Public School, located at 2703 - 09 South Shields Avenue in the Armour Square community area, dates from 1874. In Bridgeport, the oldest section of the McClellan Public School, at 3505 - 11 South Wallace Avenue, dates from 1881. Also from 1881 is the original building for the Mark Sheridan Public School at 2711 South Wallace, also located in Bridgeport. All three of these public schools were designed in the Italianate style.

Only three of the remaining schools in these nine community areas date from the 1880s. These are the original section of the Thomas Jefferson Public School, located at 1506 - 14 West Fillmore Street in the Near West Side community area, built in 1884, the Walsh Public School at 2001 - 11 South Peoria Street, located in the Lower West Side, built in 1886, and the John C. Haines Public School, located in Armour Square at 231 - 311 West 23^rd Place, the oldest section of which also dates from 1886. Nine school buildings date from the 1890s, while the rest were built after 1900.

The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School is unusual in that it retains its original exterior form dating from 1882. St. Ignatius and the Ward, McClellan and Sheridan public schools all have had substantial additions. Especially in the case of the three public schools, these additions are larger than the original buildings and alter the viewer's perception of the buildings' original appearances in their streetscapes. In addition, St. Matthew was built as a parochial school. Church schools were common in nineteenth-century Chicago, but relatively few survive. Next to St. Ignatius and St. Matthew, the oldest church-built school located within these nine community areas and documented by the Chicago Historic Resources Survey was the St. Vitus School, a Roman Catholic parochial school located at 1812 - 16 South Paulina Street in the Lower West Side, built in 1903, more than 20 years after St. Matthew.

The Early History of the Lower West Side

The earliest non-native settlement in the Lower West Side community area occurred in the 1830s, when a few farmers settled in the mostly swampy flatlands spreading southwest of the new settlement of Chicago. As Chicago grew, the city annexed the area in two stages, the northeastern one-third in 1837, the rest in 1853. The completion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 and the construction of the Chicago & Alton Railroad in the 1850s encouraged industrial development along the South Branch of the Chicago River, the eastern and southern boundaries of the community area.

The Lower West Side remained relatively sparsely settled until the early 1870s, when the Chicago Fire of 1871 encouraged many Chicagoans burned out of their homes to relocate outside the fire district. It was during the next four decades, through World War I, that the community area gained its historic working-class character. It became a port of entry for thousands of European immigrants, who moved into modest cottages and houses and small flat buildings. Many were Bohemian Czech and much of the neighborhood became known informally as "Pilsen," after the second largest city in Bohemia. However, the Lower West Side also attracted large numbers of other nationalities, including Germans, Poles, Swedes, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Croatians, and Italians.

Major industrial employers established themselves along the edges of the community, including the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad yards, lumber yards, and the garment manufacturing facilities of the Hart, Schaffner & Marx Company, the largest clothing maker in the nation at the turn of the century. Especially important was the McCormick Reaper Company, which built the first of several factory buildings at 27^th Street and Western Avenue in 1873, encouraging both residential and commercial development in the western half of the Lower West Side, including the area around the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church, the first church building of which was built at 21^st Street and Hoyne Avenue in September 1871.

Building Description

The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School is located at 2101 - 07 West 21^st Street, the southwest corner of South Hoyne Avenue and West 21^st Street, in the western portion of the Lower West Side community area of Chicago. The Lower West Side is southwest of the Chicago Loop and is bounded by 16^th Street on the north, railroad tracks just west of Western Avenue on the west, and the South Branch of the Chicago River to the east and south. The northeastern one-third of the community area was part of the original City of Chicago, organized in 1837, while the remaining section, including the land upon which the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School stands, was annexed in 1853.

The Lower West Side developed as a working-class neighborhood during the second half of the nineteenth century. The completion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 and the construction of the Chicago & Alton Railroad in the 1850s led to much industrial development along the South Branch of the Chicago River by 1900. A prominent example was the McCormick Reaper Company factory, built in 1873 at 27^th Street and Western Avenue, approximately a mile southwest of the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School. The land north of these factories developed from the 1860s onward with small-scale residential buildings, mostly cottages and two- and three-flats intended for factory workers. Small commercial buildings lined major streets, such as 18^th Street and Ashland and Blue Island avenues.

The people that were attracted to the Lower West Side were a mixture of many ethnic backgrounds. The community area by 1900 contained the largest concentration of Bohemian Czechs in Chicago, and the eastern portion of the neighborhood soon became known as "Pilsen," after a city in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic). However, there were also large numbers of other ethnic groups in the community area, including Germans, who established a German-speaking enclave, called Heart of Chicago, west of Damen Avenue near Cermak Road in the 1860s and 1870s. St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church and its school were two of several religious institutions created to serve German-speaking people living in the area.

The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School is located on the southwest corner of West 21^st Street and South Hoyne Avenue. The building lot is of somewhat generous proportions in the context of the immediate neighborhood, allowing the building to be freestanding, set back slightly from both streets, and to have all four facades clad with face brick, rather than the common brick more typically used for side and rear elevations of Chicago buildings. Some landscaping remains in the form of mature trees along the north facade, facing 21^st Street. Portions of a historic wrought-iron fence remain along 21^st and Hoyne.

Historically, the school building was part of a larger complex of buildings owned by St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church and centered on the 21^st Street - Hoyne Avenue intersection. To the north, across 21^st Street, stands the church itself, designed in 1887 by the Chicago architect Frederick Ahlschlager. West of the church is a brick building, built in 1897 as a three-story building housing part of the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School. (Due to a decline in enrollment, this building was reduced in height to one story in 1927 and converted to a gymnasium-hall building.)

The immediate neighborhood surrounding the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School contains streetscapes and individual buildings typical of the working-class history of the Lower West Side community area. Most buildings surrounding the school were built between the 1870s and World War I, are small in scale, built of historically typical materials such as wood, brick and stone, and detailed in historic architectural styles common to Chicago, including Italianate and Romanesque Revival. The Douglas (now Blue) elevated line of the Chicago Transit Authority, built in the 1890s, runs east-west between West 21^st and Cullerton streets, just behind St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church. Its Hoyne Avenue stop encouraged the development of two- and three-story commercial-residential buildings along Hoyne itself and at nearby intersections such as 21^st Street. Built of brick, these shop buildings sometimes have limestone front facades. Interspersed with these buildings are an eclectic mix of frame cottages and brick two- and three-flats. The oldest sit below current street grade and have small front yards, while others are built flush with the public sidewalks. Some frame houses have brick commercial front additions. Directly to the west of St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School, on the south side of West 21^st Street, is a two-story brick factory building from the early 1920s, somewhat unusual for the immediate neighborhood, but more common in the larger context of the Lower West Side.

The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School is two-stories in height, with a raised basement. It is cubic in its overall shape and symmetrical in its arrangement of doors and windows. With its relatively smooth brick walls, few projecting architectural elements, and low hipped roof, the school gives a visual sense of self-contained volume.

All four facades of the building share common characteristics. The foundation is randomly laid, buff-colored limestone. Exterior basement walls are red brick laid in a variation of American (sometimes called common) bond, with six stretcher rows to one header row. Basement windows have one-over-one, double-hung wooden sash with buff-colored limestone sills and brick lintels. Some have simple wrought-iron grilles. A projecting buff-colored limestone water table runs completely around the building, separating the basement and upper walls. Upper walls are reddish-brown in color and also are laid in a variation of American bond, with five stretcher rows to one header row. Some first- and second-floor windows retain the historic window configuration of six-over-six, double-hung wooden sash, while others have one-over-one, double-hung sash. Existing sash is painted cream or weathered to bare wood. (Many windows are currently protected by plywood for security reasons during rehabilitation.) All upper-floor windows have segmental-arched, buff-colored limestone lintels set flush with the surrounding brick wall. First-floor windows have individual, buff-colored limestone sills, while second-floor windows rest on a projecting, buff-colored limestone sill running continuously around the building. Below the building's cornice are two bands of brick corbels. The lower band is composed of three stepped courses forming triangles. The upper band has several brick courses forming an upside-down castellated corbel. The cornice itself is white-painted pressed metal and has a simple profile running uninterrupted around the edge of the building's roofline. A shallow-pitched hipped roof, clad with shingles, is topped by a pressed-metal steeple. A wrought-iron fence with cast-iron posts, ornamented with low-relief foliate ornament, surrounds the property on the 21^st and Hoyne street sides.

The north (main) facade, facing West 21^st Street, is five bays wide. It has brick pilasters with paired pressed-metal brackets at each building corner and flanking the central bay, which contains the main entrance. These pilasters divide the facade into a 2-1-2 bay configuration and are accented by buff-colored limestone blocks at the water table and second-floor sill levels. The main entrance was modified in the early 1900s with a one-story projecting brick entry with a flat roof and simple Classical pilasters flanking wooden double doors. The basement can be entered through the side of this entry pavilion. The top of the original entrance surround, with its simply detailed entablature and segmental-arched pediment, can be seen above and behind this addition. Above the entry are decorative stone panels with "EV- LUTH SCHULE" and "1882" set in raised letters. (The "UL" in "SCHULE" has disappeared through weathering, but the "ghost" of the letters remains.) Windows are arranged evenly across the facade, with the central entrance flanked by two windows on each side on the basement, first and second floors. Basement windows have one-over-one, double-hung wooden sash, while most first- and second-floor windows retain their historic six-over-six, double-hung wooden sash. An additional second-floor window, directly above the entrance, has been partially filled with red brick, glass block, and newer one-over-one, double-hung sash.

The east facade, facing South Hoyne Avenue, is six bays wide. Brick pilasters similar to those on the north facade mark each building corner and the center of the facade, dividing it into a 3-3 bay configuration. Six windows on each floor (basement, first floor, and second floor) are similar to those found on the north facade in overall detailing. Basement windows have one-over-one, double-hung wooden sash, while most first- and second-floor windows retain their historic six-over-six, double-hung wooden sash. One exception is the northernmost second-floor window, which was converted into a fire escape with a door, the threshold of which is lower than adjacent window sills. (The fire escape itself has been removed.)

The south facade, facing the alley, is five bays wide and is very similar to the north facade in detailing and window configuration. It has a larger setback from the property line than the other three facades, with the land currently graveled for parking. Brick pilasters similar to those on the north and east facades mark each building corner and flank the central entrance, dividing the facade into a 2-1-2 bay configuration identical to that of the north facade. A simple set of wooden steps, without railings, leads to the central entrance, decorated with a Classical surround formed from raised brick pilasters, accented with limestone bases and capitals, and a buff-colored limestone entablature and segmental-arched pediment. The entablature and pediment are identical with those found at the north entrance. A 14-pane transom above wooden double doors provides light for the inner vestibule. (The existing steps and doors are crude replacements for the historic building elements.) A basement entrance is below this central entrance. Window arrangement and decorative treatments are similar to those on the north and east facades. Windows are arranged evenly across the facade, with the entrance flanked by two windows on each side on the basement, first and second floors. An additional second-floor window is placed directly above the entrance. Basement windows have one-over-one, double-hung wooden sash, with some also retaining historic wrought-iron grilles. Most first- and second-floor windows retain their historic six-over-six, double-hung wooden sash. A brick chimney projects from the southwestern corner of the building.

The west facade, the only one not facing a public right-of-way, is similar in overall configuration and detailing with the east facade. Brick pilasters create a similar 3-3 bay configuration and windows are arranged in a similar manner with identical decorative treatment. Basement windows have one-over-one, double-hung wooden sash, while most first- and second-floor windows retain their historic six-over-six, double-hung wooden sash.

The low-pitched hipped roof has no dormers or projections other than a central cupola, built of wood and painted red, white and blue. Each side of the cupola has a pair of round-arched, louvered openings, ornamented with large keystones, and simple Classical pilasters marking each corner. These pilasters visually support an entablature running continuously around the cupola. Round-arched pediments topped by long, narrow finials ornament this entablature. A steeply-pitched truncated-hip roof, covered with shingles, rises above. It is topped by a long, narrow metal finial.

The St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School's interior is divided between two upper floors and a basement. Each floor is further subdivided into a central hallway that runs north-south through the center of the building, flanked by high-ceilinged classrooms and auxiliary spaces to both the east and west.

On the building's first floor, the north entrance, although hidden by the latter entry pavilion, retains its historic wooden frame and double doors, paneled in a one-over-two pattern. The south entrance, however, no longer retains historic doors, although the existing double doors do respect the dimensions of the original opening. The first-floor hallway connecting the two entrances has simple wooden, tongue-and-groove wainscoting and is visually dominated by two wooden staircases, rising from the center of the hallway to the second-floor hall. The north staircase hugs the east wall of the hallway, while the south staircase is against the west wall. The staircases are also detailed with wooden wainscot balustrades and have boldly turned, round wooden newel posts at the bottom of each. Wooden doors with transoms provide access to first-floor classrooms from the hallway; some retain historic doors paneled in a 2-1-2 configuration. Additional transoms with simple moldings embellish the hallway walls. Most woodwork, including doors, door frames, transom frames, wainscoting and staircase newel posts, are painted pale yellow.

The first floor historically had two classrooms, one on each side of the hallway. Floors were wood, and walls and ceilings were plastered. Wood wainscoting, similar to that found in the first-floor hallway, originally covered the lower portion of the classroom walls. Simple wood surrounds with curved moldings were used for doors and windows. Most of the plaster walls and ceilings and wood window surrounds had been damaged by water infiltration, and much of the wood wainscoting had disappeared in previous unsympathetic renovations and repairs, by the time the current owner acquired the building in 1999.

The basement has a central hallway running through the center of the building. Exterior doorways, under the north and south entrances, provide direct access from the outside. Internal access to the basement is gained through wood staircases placed under the main staircases.

These stairs are also wainscoted and have visually prominent posts at an intermediate landing, made of wood, and at the bottom of the staircase. These newel posts, unlike those used for the main staircases, are square and carved with both vertical and horizontal incising. A large room, believed to have been a classroom or lunchroom and similar in size and configuration to those on the first floor, was to the east side of the hallway. To the west of the hallway, the basement once had a small caretaker's apartment. These rooms now are without plasterwork or wood detailing, with exposed brick walls, stone foundations and concrete floors.

The second floor originally had a large center hallway, similar in size and configuration to the first-floor hallway and providing access to two second-floor classrooms, similar in size and configuration to those on the first floor. These classrooms had similar finishes and detailing historically as those on the first floor, including wood floors, plaster walls with wood wainscoting, plaster ceilings, and wood window and door surrounds. Much of the floor's historic building fabric, including doors and moldings, had disappeared before the current owner had taken possession of the building. In addition, most finishes in the classrooms, including plaster, wainscoting, and window surrounds, had been badly damaged by water or had disappeared by that time.