The Bishop's Residence

The Bishop’s Residence house at Ann St. 405. This is a historical house that was given a historical plaque by the Historic Wilmington Foundation in 2018 for being 100 years old.

 This page will start out with giving some general information of this historical structure from the plaque that is on the structure. Then this page will go into depth of the architecture of the building and what the building was used for and some of the people that did live there. Some of the sources that this page will use are some from New Hanover library PortCity digital collection, and the general archives digital collection. Additionally to this this page will also use some information from architecture websites and article and information from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London 

Plaque Information

“Spanish Baroque Style building designed for presiding Bishop, visiting clergy or multiple religious ceremonies serving St. Mary Pro-Cathedral, both built in 1911 by the R. Guostavino Co. The building project was superintended by the very Rev. Christopher Dennen.(1866-1936)”

Architecture of the building: 

The Bishop’s Residence was built in 1911 and is done in a Spanish Baroque Style according to the plaque. Though that is what is said on the plaque there is little evidence in the Bishop’s Residence architecture style that it is Spanish Baroque style. The reason why is because Spanish Baroque Style is a very dramatic and theatrical style. Additionally Baroque style of architecture according to Victoria and Albert Museum in London, “Baroque architects had been schooled in the classical Renaissance tradition, emphasizing symmetry and harmonious proportions, but their designs revealed a new sense of dynamism and grandeur” this makes the bullying dramatic and drawls on the emotion of the person who is seeing the building.¹ Though this building has some influences of Spanish Baroque style it is not a pure Spanish Baroque style. The church that this building is associated with is Spanish Baroque style, it is very dramatic and has masonry carved details on the exterior and interior of the building, the church is St. Mary’s Catholic Church. The Bishop's building is called a  Pro Cathedral in Catholicism means a place that is used as a place of worship by a bishop until a more permanent structure or church is built. The reason why this is put in there is because St. Mary’s Catholic Church and the Bishop's Residence were being built around the same time in 1911.

Additionally Baroque style architecture was from the 17th century to the 18th century which is too early of a time period for this building that was built in 1911, which makes the architecture style of this house a revival style of some sort. With that being said there was more evidence of this building being a Spanish revival style, specifically Spanish colonial revival style with minor influences from the Baroque style. The reason why is that this building is set up similarly to the Sadgwar house with both buildings having hipped pitched roof, square bases columns, Dubbed-hanged windows, and are two stories or three if you count the dormor areas, a covered porch, dormers on the roof, and look symmetrical from the front with the windows and doors. Additionally to this the Sadgwar house is done in colonial revival style. The only difference with this building compared to the Sadgwar house is that it is a direct influence of Spanish architecture. 

If you are looking at this building from the street your eyes are drawn to the covered porch with a balcony. Additionally to this around the fount of the building are flower beds with different flowers,bushes, and plants in them that frame the building nicely. This structure is three stories tall including the dormers. The first story of the building is brick while the other story of the building is stucco sections that are broken up with decorative string courses made out of brick. The stucco is white and all the molding work around the windows is done in dark green and the roof has decorative supporting eaves for the overhanging portion of it on the main part of the roof, all of this work is also done in a dark green paint. The color of the bricks is a rusted red color. The roof looks to be made out of shingles put down with tar, with a brick chimney. There are brick stairs leading up to the entryway of the building on the side of these stairs is a black iron railing. The covered porch has a square brick column and three arches that are facing the front of the house at the entrance of the building. Hanging in the center of the arches that are next to the entryway are two hanging plants that help frame the entryway. Then on the side of this on each side of this covered porch area is an additional archway. On either side of the entry way above the steps leading up to the covered porch in between the arches are lightish colored wooden fences that are done in a decorative grid pattern. In the covered porch area the top portion of the inside of the roof has decorative tile which this decorative tile located at the interior of the roof of the covered porch does show Baroque influences, another thing that does show Baroque influence is the dark green color that is used in the wooden trim around all the windows of the building and the underside of the portion of the roof the hangs over the building. The arches of the building show the Spanish influences and the square bases column and the hipped roof shows the colonial revival influences. The door where you would enter the building is half glazed and the rest appears to be wood, and on either side of the door is one double hinged window on each side that has five panels. The trim of the windows are white while the woodwork around the windows are dark green, the wood work around the door is also dark green. Additionally the windows that are on either side of the door are also in an arched built in window area. Also next to the door is a white mailbox. Outside of this and on either side of the three brick archways that do not have big decorative keystones they are done in a planned way. This is located in the center of the building on either side of this there is a built in an area that has bricked arche that is closed and surrounds three windows that are in the middle of this arched window area. There are two smaller windows that are five paneled with a bigger seven paned window in the middle of the smaller ones all of this is surrounded by wood work that is painted green. Above the brick portion of the building in the center, is a balcony that is not covered and it has a double glass doorway with two windows and five panned windows on either side, this lines up symmetrically with the doorway and the two windows below it. Between the brick column of the covered porch below and the stucco work that leads to that balcony there is some decorative masonry work that is done in brick. The front portion of the outside walls of the balcony follows the curves of the columns below it. The wall of this section of the house is a section of white stucco with horizontal decorative brick stringcourse dividing up these actions of the stucco wall. On either side of the balcony built into the stucco wall are three windows that are also five panes that have green wooden molding sounding each window. Above this is an overhanging portion of that roof with decorative eaves all done in the same dark green paint. Above this are three dormers that are sticking out of the hipped pitched roof. The middle dormor is bigger than the others. The big middle one has one 6 paned window that on either side of it is one three paned window. Then the two smaller dormor that are on either side of the big middle one have one four paned windows built in them. All the windows in the dormors are built indented into the building with the walls of the dormers surrounding the windows. Overall this building is very symmetrically pleasing to the eyes and the arches are done in a “herringbone pattern”, according to according to the Basilica Shrine of Saint Mary Historic Wilmington Foundation Plaque committee meeting notes and the white stucco work gives it a very Spanish feel to it.² 

Why was the building built?

The reason why this building was built is according to the Basilica Shrine of Saint Mary Historic Wilmington Foundation Plaque committee meeting notes was the land that the building sits on was originally owned by the Vicariate of North Carolina and The Most Reverend Abbot Loe Haid meant to live in the residents as the Vicar Apostolic. However he went to Raleigh and so the residence became residents for the pastors of the church till 1940, then for a little while it was used as a school for St. Mary’s and then residents for the Sisters of Mercy. Serving as the Bishop’s Residence was one function of this building while also hosting many religious ceremonies and events of St. Mary’s. The Residence goes in and out of residence for pastor’s residence and the housing for different ministry offices and an area for different events and ceremonies for St. Mary’s. 

Who lived there?

An example of some of the the people that did at one point live in this structure are The Sister of St. Ursula, Sr. Isaac Koenig, S.U., Sr. Marion McGillcuddy, S.U. and Sr. Mary Alice Mooney these people were important clergy to the church and lived in the house from 2003-2018. Then in 2018 Fr. Ryszard Kolodziej is living in the house. Additionally due to so many different clergy of the church living in this house at different times it would be difficult to choose who to include and who not to include into the plaque information. Also due to so many different people living at the Bishop’s Residences at different times it is hard to track down everyone and account their story on a plaque. Also the Bishop’s Resences was not used as a residence of clergy of the church all the time it was also used for different events and ceremonies which fortunately the plaque on the structure from the historic Wilmington Foundation does depict that. 

Conclusion

All in all when I first saw the information on the plaque I thought it was short and didn’t have a lot of information on it. However by doing more research on this historical structure I can see why the information on the plaque is so short and that is because the history of the Bishop's Residence is so extensive it is not possible to capture all of it on a fourteen lined plaque. So for this historical structure it is best to be short and concise and to the point, so that whoever is reading the plaque can at least get a general idea of who lived there and what that building was used for. Fortunately the little bit of information that the plaque currently does.