Fol­low­ing the end of the Civil War, St.Mary’s Church, located at 728 23rd St NW, was devel­oped for an Epis­co­pal con­gre­ga­tion of freed slaves in the pre­dom­i­nantly African Amer­i­can Foggy Bot­tom com­mu­nity. Noted archi­tect James Ren­wick, Jr. drew on his exten­sive design vocab­u­lary— e.g. the Smith­son­ian Cas­tle, the Ren­wick Gallery, St. Patrick’s Cathe­dral in NYC, etc.—to endow the modestly-sized St. Mary’s with the high­est design stan­dards of the times.

Today, whether you seek it out as a respite from the daily hub­bub, as a place of wel­come wor­ship, or to view it as the archi­tec­tural trea­sure and his­toric venue it is, there is no equiv­o­cat­ing the role that the cur­rent and devoted life-time parish­ioners have had in mak­ing this mea­sured restora­tion hap­pen. With sup­port from the Foggy Bot­tom Defense and Improve­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and a match­ing NEA grant, the ded­i­cated con­gre­ga­tion raised the bal­ance of the funds result­ing in a mul­ti­year ren­o­va­tion of the build­ing exte­rior and the exquis­ite restora­tion of the jewel-like inte­rior. Accord­ing to archi­tec­tural con­ser­va­tor Marc Fet­ter­man, St. Mary’s is one of the few, and pos­si­bly only, church of this period that has retained its orig­i­nal design.

The beau­ti­ful sten­ciled chan­cel wall suf­fered badly from water dam­age sev­eral years ago. The Foggy Bot­tom Asso­ci­a­tion Defense and Improve­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Direc­tors rec­og­nized the impor­tance of sup­port­ing the restora­tion of the wall due to the church’s his­tory and land­mark sta­tus. There­fore, it pro­vided funds for the restora­tion with the caveat that they be matched by the church or a third party. The ded­i­cated con­gre­ga­tion was able to pro­vide the bal­ance of the funds and the result is an exquis­ite restora­tion of the jewel-like sten­ciled wall.

The exhibit and recep­tion at St. Mary’s Church on July 7 was held in a cel­e­bra­tion of thanks to the Foggy Bot­tom Asso­ci­a­tion Defense and Improve­ment Cor­po­ra­tion for its gift. It was hosted by the Rev. Louis T. Wheeler, Jr., Rec­tor, the Vestry, and Parish­ioners. An infor­ma­tive talk about the restora­tion was led by the archi­tect who has been assist­ing St. Mary’s in address­ing struc­tural prob­lems at the church as well as the head of the firm that car­ried out the restora­tion. Attend­ing the cer­e­mony were cur­rent and past FBADIC Direc­tors includ­ing Ron Cocome (Pres­i­dent), Eliz­a­beth Elliott, Jackie Lemire, Richard Price, Bar­bara Spillinger, and Bob Vogt.