Glencoe Methodist Church Gets Historic Status

For a village, Glencoe is a diverse, ecumenical community, with five Protestant churches, three Jewish synagogues and a Catholic church, which is just outside Glencoe's limits in Hubbard Woods.

But in the beginning, there was just one place of worship, the Glencoe Union Church, founded in 1872 on Park Avenue. 

“It is one of the early buildings in the community,” said the Rev. Jenny Weber of North Shore United. “It is a beautiful building.”

When the original Union church burned down in 1910, the growing Methodist community decided to break off and form a new church, the third in Glencoe after St. Paul African Methodist Episcopalian.

North Shore United Methodist Church was formalized in May 1910, and the church, an imposing Gothic Revival sanctuary with Tudor Revival detailing, was finished on Greenleaf Avenue in 1915.

Last year, North Shore United celebrated 100 years of service, and in December, the Glencoe Board of Trustees named the 1915 sanctuary a village historic landmark—a first for a church in Glencoe.

“It's very rare for a church to seek historic preservation or landmark status,” said village trustee Ellen Shubart.

She said the village can give carrots in the form of tax breaks to most property owners to encourage them to preserve and commemorate locally significant buildings. “You can't offer that to a church—they don't pay taxes.”

If the Methodist church wants building permits to make major changes to the exterior of the building in the future, its representatives will have to appear before the village's preservation commission.

Shubart said many are reluctant to take this step, but the commission's role is purely advisory. If the owners of landmark properties disagree with the findings, they can still do what they want with the sites.

Shubart said that the Reform Jewish synagogue Am Shalom had been a village historic landmark but was delisted after the congregation made changes to the exterior brickwork.

For the sake of historic preservation, it helped that two Methodist church members, Ed Goodale and Scott Javore, sat on the historic preservation commission, tasked with protecting Glencoe's unique character.

“We both had a good sense of the value of the building's history and architecture,” said Javore, a commission member from 1992 to 2008 and a church member since 1994. “It was primarily done for recognition.”

The church was designed by prominent Chicago architectural firm Riddle & Riddle. Javore said the adjoining parsonage, where Weber lives, was also designed by one of the Riddles.

Few changes have been made to the exterior of the original building, and the interior sanctuary was restored in 1999, when a new pipe organ was installed and the building was made more handicapped accessible.