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Flagship Structure #7

Grace Episcopal Church

1314 Spring St
St. Helena, CA 94574

Year Built 1883
Architect William P. Wentworth
Category Sacred Spaces
Architectural Style Gothic Revival
Period 1875-1899

Founded as a congregation in 1875, Grace Episcopal Church dedicated its first building on December 12 of that year. The stone sanctuary that still stands today was completed in 1883 by Bostonian architect William P. Wentworth at the corner of Spring Street and Oak Avenue, replacing earlier wooden chapels. The one-story sanctuary is built of dressed stone with a steeply-pitched roof and exposed interior beams, marking it as one of the earliest stone church buildings in Napa County, and the first stone church in the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California. It retains the original sanctuary as its core.

Over the years Grace Church has expanded and adapted. In 1971 a stone bell tower and sacristy were added, and significant renovations in 1997-2005 introduced fellowship halls, classrooms, offices, a commercial kitchen, and youth spaces. The sanctuary underwent a seismic retrofit and enlargement in 2008, restoring its stone character and preserving its look and feel. A stone churchyard wall, built in 1892, and hand-carved mahogany doors by Marian Brackenridge (circa 1970) are notable extant features. In 2015, a labyrinth modeled after the Chartres Cathedral design was added as a contemplative outdoor feature. Today, the sanctuary and its additions together reflect both the original nineteenth-century craftsmanship and later community investments in maintaining and adapting the church for modern congregational life.