| Additional Information: | 1983: Recent addition to the east. Spires of unequal height flank entrance. very distinctive and elaborate example of High Victorian Gothic church design with much integrity. The cross gabled brick church features much exterior design: the primary facade has a triple arch entrance surmounted with large gablets, a large stained glass window and a corbel table. Two prominent towers pierce the skyline and a small lantern with tracery crowns the roof at the crossing. Crockets complicate the silhouette and white paint highlights many of the details. The interior of the church retains much original design including stained glass, woodwork, and restored painted decoration in the vaulted ceiling.
In 1881 the minister if St. Paul's and part of the congregation left to organize St. Stephen. From 1882 until this building was built, they met in the old Universailst Church on the same site.
2018 survey report write-up: This complex consists of a Late Gothic Revival-style church (1910; AHI#51205), an attached Collegiate Gothic-inspired Parish House/Educational Unit (1956; #236474) and a 1949 Parsonage (#236475). Dominating the corner of the parcel is the church which features a pair of towers, one smaller than the other, which flank the tripartite entrance comprised of Gothic-arched openings with glass transoms featuring tracery. A focal window is located along the second level and the gabled roofline is accented with a brick corbel table. The entrance, as well as each of the towers, is embellished with finials and stone crockets. Adjacent to the east of the church is the two-story, brick-clad Educational Unit/Parish House. A modestly crenellated tower-like unit defines the building’s primary entrance which is defined by a Gothic-arched opening finished in stone. A single-story bay, also with crenellated detailing, breaks up the otherwise regular, rectangular fenestration found throughout the building. At the easternmost end of the church parcel is the parsonage. The entrance is defined by a one-story gabled projection, while the door is set within a round-arched brickwork opening. Windows throughout the brick and aluminum-clad home are largely multiple-light, double-hung sash windows, including those within the first-floor bay window projection.
St. Stephen’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church was established in 1881, after a group of parishioners, along with the pastor, left St. Paul’s Evangelical congregation. Their first house of worship (in 1882) was the former Universalist Church that was built in 1872 (at the subject location). That structure served them until they engaged Milwaukee architect Anton Dohmen to design their existing church, which was dedicated on 15 May 1910. In 1949, a five-bedroom parsonage was erected at the east end of the church parcel; the general contractor was identified as Holster. Six years later, construction of an educational unit (designed by Donald M. Schoepke) began and it was completed in 1956, with dedication occurring in late April. This structure included Sunday school classrooms, church offices, a library, women’s lounge, rooms for church society groups, a youth activities room and an assembly room. At the same time, the church interior was redecorated for the first time since 1910; that work was done by the Scharbacher Company of Springfield, Illinois. In 1983, construction began for an elevator addition that was made between the church and the parish house, thereby connecting the two buildings at the front. The church continues to serve the subject congregation to date. |
|---|
| Bibliographic References: | (A) Wausau Pilot, May 10, 1910.
(B) Louis Marchette, History of Marathon County, (Chicago: Richmond-Arnold), 1913, p. 361.
Wausau Daily Herald 6/12/2002.
Aucutt, Hettinga & Jansen, "Wausau Beautiful," (2nd edition, 2010), page 42.
Citations for the survey report information below: “Parsonage of St. Stephen’s Church Finished,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 8 December 1949, Clipping in St. Stephen’s Church files, MCHSRL; “Let Contracts for Addition to St. Stephen’s,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 24 March 1955, 5/2; “Lay Cornerstone of St. Stephen’s Educational Unit,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 13 August 1955, 2/1; “St. Stephen’s to Dedicate Parish House,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 24 April 1956, 1/4, 16/3, photo page 14; “Groundbreaking Planned at St. Stephen’s Lutheran,” Wausau Daily Herald, 18 June 1983, 7/1; “St. Stephen’s 125th Anniversary Booklet, 1881-2006,” Prepared by the congregation, St. Stephen’s church file; Malaguti & Norton, “Final Report: Intensive Historic Survey,” 188.
City in the Pinery, A Guide to Wausau's Architecture, The City of Wausau, 1984. |
|---|
