St. Luke's Episcopal Church is located in Beacon, New York, United States. The church complex of four buildings and a cemetery takes up a parcel between Wolcott (NY 9D), Rector, Phillips and Union Streets. It was founded in 1832 as a religious school that soon became St. Anna's Church of Fishkill Landing.
The church and rectory were built from 1868 to 1870 from a design by Frederick Clarke Withers, who later on considered the former one of his best buildings. The Gothic Revival-styled building strongly reflects contemporary Ecclesiological theories of appropriate church architecture. Despite some modifications and restoration, the buildings and grounds have remained largely as they were when first built. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008 as "St. Luke's Episcopal Church Complex".
Church complex
Withers' original design included the church and its rectory, on the corner of Wolcott and Rector. A Parish House was added near the end of the 19th century. It was added to, and a garage built, in the mid-20th. The church buildings and cemetery were laid out by Henry Winthrop Sargent.
Church
St. Luke's is a one-and-half-story asymmetrical cruciform building faced in Schenectady bluestone in an ashlar pattern with Ohio sandstone trim. It is over a hundred feet (30 m) in length and 60 feet (20 m) wide. Two porches extend from the south profile, a main entrance in the middle of the nave and a secondary one in the transept. There is another porch, pent-roofed, on the north transept. An organ and robing room is attached to the north side of the chancel.
The gabled roof is covered in a variety of materials, mostly cement-asbestos shingles, with some areas of slate and metal. A frame bell cote topped with cast iron cross rises from the west end. The roofline is further pierced by a stone chimney on the north transept and several English Decorated Gothic stone crosses at junctions on the east end. All windows are either lancet or round-arched, with some having additional trefoils. The stained glass was done by Louis Comfort Tiffany's firm and the British glaziers Bell & Almond. Above the main entrance is a bronze lamp with a stone medallion of a bull, the symbol of St. Luke.
The interior walls are plaster applied over an interior brick face, with vertical beadboard and molded chair rail complemented by a similar cornice at the joint between the walls and ceiling. The slip pews are made of oak with tre- and quatrefoil carvings at the ends. The floors in the center and side aisles are laid in a polychrome glass pattern, with carpet covering the area under the pews. There is a brass dedication plaque on the west wall.
Open stained pine trusses spring from corbels along the walls frame the ceiling. They are complemented by sandstone at the arches between the building sections and surrounding the windows and doors. The nave is lit by hanging lamps. In the chancel the bishop's throne, sedilia, prayer desk and stalls are all oak like the pews. The font is of Aubigny stone on a sandstone shaft.
Below the church is its basement. It remains largely unfinished, as it was when the church was built, and unused.
Rectory
The rectory was part of Withers' original design, and built along with the church. It is a likewise asymmetrical two-and-a-half-story structure of bluestone walls with brick trim, rebuilt to its original plan after a fire. The south-facing front features a gable and tower; the east elevation has a double gable. The west elevation has a single gabled dormer window with half-timbering. The roof is shingled in asphalt.
Inside, the house's decor reflects later Victorian stylings, due to the era in which it was rebuilt. The walls are plaster on lath; the floorboards are thin oak. The woodwork, particularly the mantels, use Eastlake decorative motifs. In the hallway next to the main staircase is the church's safe. The basement is, like the church's, unfinished.
Other outbuildings
The Parish House on Rector Street is a Romanesque Revival building with a large modern frame addition. A fireplace within it retains a cast-iron decorative plate from the rectory at the church's earlier location in downtown Beacon. Due to the additions, it is not considered a contributing property to the church's overall historic character.
The only other building on the property is the garage. It is a modern structure made of concrete blocks, and is also a non-contributing resource.