St. Joseph's Catholic Church Complex is located in

Waukesha, Wisconsin Waukesha ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 71,158 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located along the Fox River (Illinois River tributary), Fox River adjacent to th ...

. The church building itself was built in 1888. On October 28, 1983, the complex was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

for its architectural significance. St. Joseph's Parish was organized in 1842, the first

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church in Waukesha.

Solomon Juneau Burials at Calvary Cemetery (Milwaukee) Solomon Laurent Juneau, or Laurent-Salomon Juneau (August 9, 1793 – November 14, 1856) was a French Canadian fur trader, land speculator, and politician who helped found the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ...

donated the first church building, which was a log cabin on the site of the current complex. In 1844 the parish built a stone church building, With which has since served as a parish hall, school, and medical clinic. This 1844 building has been remodeled enough that it is not part of the NRHP nomination. In 1888 the parish began building a larger church building. Adolphus Druiding of Chicago designed it in

High Victorian Gothic High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either a sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style in its own right. Prom ...

style, with its emphasis on the vertical. The exterior is rock-faced, randomly-coursed limestone, with multiple

rose windows Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' wa ...

lancet windows A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

, and multiple gables and

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

s. Each gable is topped with a cross. The layout is asymmetric, with a large tower on one side of the main entrance, rising to a tall steeple topped with a cross. The Brown House is the other part of the complex that is part of the NRHP nomination. It was built around 1878, a two-story brick house with

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

massing and

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

details. It was originally the home of Martin Brown, a

harness A harness is a looped restraint or support. Specifically, it may refer to one of the following harness types: * Bondage harness * Child harness * Climbing harness * Dog harness * Five-point harness, a type of seatbelt * Horse harness * Pet harnes ...

maker. The church later used the house as a

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

. Both the church building and the Brown house were nominated to the NRHP for their architectural significance. They are some of the best surviving examples of their styles in Waukesha.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Joseph's Catholic Church, Waukesha Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee Roman Catholic churches completed in 1878 Churches in Waukesha, Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Waukesha County, Wisconsin Religious organizations established in 1842 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States