Built 1906 NRHP Reference # 86001802 Area 5,300 m² Added to NRHP 4 September 1986 | MPS Newton MRA Opened 1906 Phone +1 617-527-3203 Architect Ralph Adams Cram | |
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Location 1326 Washington St., Newton, Massachusetts Architectural style Late Gothic Revival, Tudor Revival, Elizabethan Revival, Other Part of West Newton Village Center Historic District (#90000017) Address 1326 Washington St, Newton, MA 02465, USA Similar Second Church in Newton, United Parish of Auburndale, Evangelical Baptist Church, Episcopal Parish of the Messi, First Baptist Church in Newton | ||
The First Unitarian Society in Newton occupies a prominent location at 1326 Washington Street in the heart of the village of West Newton in Newton, Massachusetts. Architect Ralph Adams Cram designed the church, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. designed the grounds, the cornerstone was laid in 1905, and it was dedicated in 1906; it is one of the village's oldest buildings. The church is in Cram's signature Gothic Revival style, with buttressed walls and a blocky square tower with crenellations and spires. An enclosed courtyard is formed by an office wing, banquet hall, and parish house, which are built to resemble Elizabethan architecture with brick first floor and half-timbered upper level.
The Unitarian Society was organized in 1848, and its first building was built in 1860. A Gothic Revival structure later expanded with Stick style decoration, it stood at the present location of the West Newton Cinema. The present building was built on the site of an early experimental normal school (later move to Framingham and now Framingham State University, and has a stained glass window featuring two Massachusetts education pioneers (and parishioners of the church), Horace Mann and Cyrus Peirce.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the First Unitarian Church in 1986.