You can read details about the St. John's - St. Luke Evangelical Church Local Historic District in the St. John's - St. Luke Evangelical Church Local Historic District Final Report (local copy), which I recommend highly to anyone interested in Detroit's history.

The proposed St. John's-St. Luke Evangelical Church Historic District, at 2120 Russell includes the church, an attached parochial school, and a parsonage. The complex is located about three-fourths of a mile east of the center of downtown Detroit adjacent to Gratiot Avenue, one of Detroit's principle radial arteries. It is surrounded by multi-story, brick commercial and industrial buildings on three sides and abuts a large, park-like, modern urban renewal area residential development, Lafayette Park, to the south.

HISTORY: [+ expand]

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: St. John's-St. Luke Evangelical Church is a brick, High Victorian Gothic church building with a school building attached at the rear and a parsonage adjacent on the north. The church's main facade faces Russell Street to the west. At the southwest corner of the facade is the major tower, and on the northwest a smaller tower, which flank the main portal centered in the facade. The main body of the church consists of a gabled nave flanked by lower aisles. Transepts adjoin the main body of the building near the rear, where the church is attached to the school building. Newspaper reports at the time the church was dedicated in 1874 identified the style as "German Gothic." The High Victorian Gothic design is in fact a typical and highly effective amalgamation of eclectic Gothic detail into an unified whole.

Alterations to the exterior of the church have changed its appearance considerably. Originally, the buildings were of red brick with sandstone trim; the roof was laid in patterned slate, and surmounted by iron cresting. It has since been covered with black asphalt. The details along the gables and roof lines were, in part, of wood, and these have largely disappeared. The slate-covered tower spires have both been removed. The original southwest spire, over 200' in height, was reportedly struck by lightening in the 1930's, leading to its dismantling. Most importantly, in 1914-15, the church building proper was covered with "formstone", an ashlar-patterned, rock-faced concrete covering which completely obscured the original brick. The exterior of St. John's-St. Luke represents one of the two known applications in Michigan of this early twentieth century artificial cladding material. Later, in the 1950's, the original concrete imitation stone was replaced on the west front with actual perma-stone. Thus, the building was given a plainer, more twentieth century Gothic look. No such alterations have been made to the school, finished in 1872. Nearly square in plan, the building has two vertical bays on the east and west facade, each ending in a gable. While some minor detail has been removed from these facades, the covering of the original slate roof remains the major alteration. The east facade is plainer since it was originally the rear of the building.

Inside, the church as been little altered; it retains its original High Victorian appearance. The church itself, about 100 feet long and about 45 feet high, is surrounded by galleries. The balconies are supported on cast iron columns with Corinthian capitals. Between the windows of the clerestory are spring hammer beam trusses which support the roof. The transepts are at the rear of the building, and the seating in the side galleries continues up into them on risers.

The church interior is painted with white and gold on the carved woodwork and light blue on most wall and ceiling surfaces. It is known that much of the white woodwork was originally dark, either wood finish or painted grain. Stencil decoration has been painted over, and the painting scheme is essentially plain. The church is presently undertaking a study to determine the original scheme which finds its origins in a short-lived alliance between William Wright, a prominant Detroit decorating contractor, and Gordon W. Lloyd, Detroit's leading architect of the period. Wright and Lloyd became partners in a firm to provide design services combined with the craftsmanship to carry out the work. Under the present paint in this church lies the only known example of the work of that firm; the church has determined that the scheme should be uncovered and recorded and if possible restored.

Against the rear wall of the church stands the altar area which is encompassed by a wooden railing. On the rear wall behind it is the raised pulpit, accessible only by a flight of stairs concealed in a hallway behind the sanctuary. Above the pulpit is the organ gallery, which is situated over the first floor hallway in the adjacent school. This arrangement of altar below, pulpit above, and organ on top derives directly from north German and Scandinavian Lutheran practice (Cf. Trinitatis Kirche, Copenhagen) and was allegedly intended to symbolize the equality, for purposes of worship, of the sacrament, the spoken work, and song.

Another significant feature of the interior is the electric lighting system, unaltered since its installation in the early days of electrical lighting. Drops on the hammer beams have globes suspended; more startling to the modern visitor are the bare bulbs installed in rows along the bottom of the gallery railings and around the arched opening to the organ gallery. In addition, the three major flats of pipes in the organ case are surrounded by smaller bulbs and the same small bulbs line the organ gallery railing and the pulpit canopy. The somewhat carnival atmosphere which this brings to mind reflects the fact that such lighting is popularly identified today mostly with theaters and amusement parks while more sophisticated buildings that may have originally been illumined this way have been refitted with more subtle lighting. This unusual and intact example of early twentieth century architectural lighting is unique in Michigan as an example of the thoughtful experimentation with a new technology.

The organ in the gallery is a significance on a national basis, for it is the largest surviving instrument known by G. G. Votteler of Cleveland, Ohio. Built for the church in 1873-74, the instrument demonstrates that Votteler knew recent developments in German organ-building, which had been introduced into this country by the mammoth Boston Music Hall organ in the late 1860's. Built by Walcker of Ludwigsburg, Germany, that organ had revolutionized American organ tonal design. Votteler is known to have been a German, but little is known of his life. It is hard to suggest, however, that the Boston instrument could have so strongly influenced an individual builder in a provincial center like Cleveland; most likely, Votteler brought to American through his immigration many of the tonal principles exemplified in Boston. In its construction, the Votteler organ shows a crudity suggestive of the workman without power tools and doing his work largely by himself. That the result was well built is testified to by the continued service of the organ, only slightly altered and unrestored, more than a century after its construction. The significance of the instrument increases with the fact that Votteler was the founder of a firm which later, through changing partnerships, became the Holtkamp Organ Company, still in business today. Walter Holtkamp, Sr., principal of the firm from the 1930's to about 1960, was one of the seminal figures in the reform of American organ building which he, together with G. Donald Harrison of Aeolian-Skinner, began in the 1930's. Votteler's work retains a fair measure of the classical principles of organ building which Harrison and Holtkamp fought to re-introduce following the decadance of the early twentieth century. It is not too much to suggest that Holtkamp might have taken some inspiration and example from the work of the founder of his firm. Housed in a charming Gothic Revival case, the organ at St. John's-St. Luke, with its two manuals and pedal containing 22 ranks of pipes, is the most complete example of Votteler's work known to exist.

The windows in the church were completely replaced in a campaign of memorial donations in the 1940's, the work having been carried out by the now-defunct Detroit Stained Glass Works, whose predecessors, Friedrichs & Staffen, likely made the original glass for the building. Remaining original glass in several locations suggests that the replacement of the original glass was, in fact, a long-delayed culmination of the original intent to provide simple glass which could be replaced at a later time with more pretentious work.

The interior of the school reflects changing use over the years. The first floor was largely rebuilt in 1914-15, providing a large "parish hall" space handsomely panelled and beamed in oak. A kitchen was provided as well as rest rooms and a nursery. On the second floor, two classrooms remain intact, as does an apartment for the sexton. One space in the northwest corner was altered in 1914-15 to provide a locker room facility, connected with the auditorium space above. The third floor was entirely given over to an auditorium almost two stories in height within the mansard roof. A balcony spans the width of the room at the south end. No stage was provided, the main floor space being intended for multiple use. This space has been almost entirely unused over a great many years, and is virtually unaltered from its original state. Stencilled decoration remains on walls and ceilings, and the original colored and frosted glass borders still exist in the windows.