Formerly Grace Episcopal Church, Eliot Unitarian Chapel took over this beautiful Gothic Revival church just east of downtown Kirkwood in 1961.
The Eliot comes from the same man who helped found Washington University.
Eliot had been meeting at the YMCA since 1954, and moved in on the one hundredth anniversary of Grace Episcopal, which had constructed the church in 1862.
The interior today is decidedly Modernist in form, with white walls and chairs instead of pews. A high altar is replaced with a piano and lectern.
But it does look like some of the original pews are preserved in the balcony or choir loft.
Have enjoyed perusing this site on and off and spotted this; I finally thought to search the site for Kirkwood, where I grew up in the 60s-70s. We went to Eliot in the 60s. As klds, we’d wander up into the steeple tower, which to us seemed to be hundreds of feet high.
Steve, I’m a big fan of Kirkwood! I will be revisiting it in the future. By the way, I lived in the Washington, DC area for a while, and I am familiar with McLean, Virginia.
Please Email me for a bit about the new steeple on Eliot Unitarian Chapel in Kirkwood.
When built, the tower would have held a church bell; the frame to support one was still in the belfry when I visited this building in the early 1990s. But by then, the bell was long gone, and the folks at the Episcopal Church had no memory of it.