St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church
410 W. Cross
1924 & 1933, Neo—Romanesque

Neo-Romanesque was a popular style for Roman Catholic churches from the turn of the century well into the 1950s. The church was designed by architects McGrath and Dolman of Detroit and built by BryantDetwiler, also of Detroit. Its most innediate models were St. John’s Seminary in Plymouth, Michigan and several parish churches in Detroit by the same architects. It was believed that the Neo—Romanesque style closely imitated late Byzantine and early Romanesque churches of Italian villages and of Rome to capture a close metaphorical tie with the papacy. Particular details and materials adhere to their European antecedents, such as the monumental front Roman portal with its elaborate, stone mullionated rose window, open side bellfry and colonnade, as well as the use of red brick, carved limestone trim and terracotta barrel roof tile. Although the church was built during the height of the Depression, its basement had been built in 1924 and used for services for nine years. This basement had, in turn, replaced a fine, small church built in 1857 in the Italianate style of that day, with a square, central steeple and bell tower.