Patrick Keely

St. Mary's Church Complex (Newport, Rhode Island), the oldest Catholic Church building in Rhode Island

Patrick Charles Keely (1816, Thurles, County Tipperary — Aug. 11, 1896, Brooklyn, New York) was an Irish-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York and Providence, Rhode Island. He was a prolific designer of nearly six hundred churches and hundreds of other institutional buildings for the Roman Catholic Church or Roman Catholic patrons in the eastern United States of America and Canada, particularly in New York City, Boston, Massachusetts, and Chicago in the later half of the nineteenth century. He designed every nineteenth-century Catholic cathedral in New England.^[1] Several other church and institutional architects began their careers in his firm.

Early life in Ireland

Keely was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland (alternatively another source states it was County Kilkenny, Ireland^[1]) on August 9, 1816 to a family in comfortable circumstances. His draftsman and builder father introduced him to architecture and training in construction, though nothing is recorded of his architectural design education.

Early life in Brooklyn, New York

He emigrated through Castle Gardens to Brooklyn, New York in 1842. He arrived at a time when Catholicism in the United States was expanding from its initial footholds in Baltimore, Maryland, New York City, and Boston Massachusetts. Initially, he worked as a carpenter and builder since there were few trained architects practicing and most structures were erected with the design assistance of the client and builder alone. Common practice held that the builder, whether trained as mason or carpenter, crafted his own plans, and details were often executed without even the aid of drawings. For a number of years Keely worked at his trade without attracting attention. During this time, he met the Rev. Sylvester Malone, a Roman Catholic priest his own age. Father Malone was sent to form a parish near the waterfront at Williamsburgh in Kings County, New York in 1846. Together with Keely, he worked out a plan for a Gothic church possessing pointed arches, pinnacles, and a few buttresses. Working as a carpenter, Keely produced designs the new Roman Catholic Church of Saints Peter and Paul (Brooklyn, New York) in the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn in 1847.

St. Brigid's Church (1848), Lower East Side, New York City

Architectural career

Saints Peter and Paul, Williamsburgh, was considered an epoch in Catholic building in America. The much-praised work established him as a competent architect and builder at a time when a number of new Roman Catholic churches were being planned "but a relative scarcity of competent architects of the Roman Catholic faith, and Keely's reputation for honesty and integrity quickly made him a popular choice among the hierarchy and clergy throughout the eastern United States."^[1]

Thereafter, Keely effectively became the in-house architect for the Roman Catholic archdioceses and was approached from all sides with requests for designs of churches and other necessary structures for an expanding religious life. In Brooklyn alone there was a great wave of Catholic settlers for whom churches were urgently needed and Keely was the only one thought of to do the work. He continued as a carpenter / craftsman in conjunction with his designing duties, handcrafting such ecclesiastical features of the reredos of the now closed Saint Brigid's Church (1848) in the Lower East Side. Later, he partnered with his wife’s brother in law, James Murphy in Brooklyn, New York and Providence, Rhode Island, under the name Keely & Murphy from the 1860s to 1867, until Murphy opened his own practice in Providence.^[1] Keely worked throughout the eastern United States and Canada, primarily in the industrial mill towns and cities of the state of New York and New England, principally a designer of Roman Catholic churches or institutional buildings. Among his work were several cathedrals in the Northeast and "many of the more substantial parish churches" later "elevated to cathedral status during the twentieth century." He designed a few churches for Protestant congregations…."^[1]

Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec

Several later noteworthy architects began their careers in his office, including Elliott Lynch, James Farmer (his wife’s brother), James Murphy (his wife’s brother-in-law), his sons Charles Keely (d.1889, Hartford, CT), John J. Keely (d.1879, Brooklyn), and son-in-law Thomas F. Houghton.^[1] He died after a long illness, while still directing the completion of several churches with his son-in-law Houghton. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn, under an inauspicious polished granite block embossed "KEELY."^[2]

Works

Arkansas

• Cathedral of St. Andrew, Little Rock

Connecticut

• Cathedral of St. Joseph, Hartford (1889, burned 1956)
• Church of St. Mary, the Immaculate Conception, Derby
• Sacred Heart Church, Waterbury
• Cathedral of St. Augustine, Bridgeport
• Assumption Church, Ansonia
• St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church, Baltic, Connecticut
• St. Peter Church, Danbury, Connecticut (attributed to Kiely and Murphy)

Illinois

• Cathedral of the Holy Name, Chicago
• St. James Church, Chicago
• Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church, Chicago
• St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Chicago

Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame, Indiana

Indiana

• University of Notre Dame Basilica of the Sacred Heart (1870–1888), Notre Dame

Holy Name Cathedral, view from State Street, 735 N. State St, Chicago

Maine

• Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (1869), Portland
• St. Joseph's Church (1865), Lewiston
• St. John's Church (1855), Bangor

North and west facades of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston

Maryland

• Corpus Christi Church, Baltimore

Massachusetts

• 1858-1861: Immaculate Conception Church, Boston (Jesuit Urban Center)^[3]
• Immaculate Conception Church, Newburyport
• 1867-1875: Cathedral of the Holy Cross (1866–1875), Boston^[4]
• Holy Trinity Church, Boston
• Our Lady of Victories Church, Boston
• St. James Church, Boston
• St. Mary's Church, Boston (demolished 1977)
• St. Francis De Sales Church, Roxbury (original building, demolished)
• 1859: St. Francis de Sales Church, Charlestown^[5]
• St. Augustine Church, South Boston
• St. Vincent de Paul Church, South Boston
• Sts. Peter and Paul Church, South Boston (rebuild of original church by J. Fox Bryant)

Hammerbeam ceiling, carved by Keely himself, at St. Mary Church, Charlestown, MA (1887-1893, 1895)

• St. Peter Church Dorchester
• St. Margaret Church, Dorchester (with Thomas Houghton)
• St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Jamaica Plain
• St. Mary Church, Charlestown
• Church of the Holy Redeemer, East Boston
• Church of the Assumption, East Boston
• St. John Church, Cambridge (with James Murphy)
• Sacred Heart Church, Cambridge (with Patrick W. Ford)
• Sacred Heart Church, Weymouth (burned 2005)
• Sacred Hearts Church, Malden
• Sacred Heart Church, Lynn
• St. Mary Church, Lawrence
• St. Patrick's Church (1853), Lowell
• St. Michael Church, Lowell
• Church of the Immaculate Conception, Lowell
• St. Peter Church, Lowell (demolished)
• St. Paul Church, Hingham
• Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, Fall River
• St. Joseph's Church, Fall River
• St. Patrick's Church, Fall River
• St. Lawrence, Martyr Church, New Bedford
• Cathedral of St. Michael, Springfield
• Holy Name of Jesus Church, Chicopee
• St. Joseph Church, Pittsfield
• St. Jerome Church, Holyoke

New Hampshire

• Cathedral of St. Joseph, Manchester (with Patrick W. Ford)

New Jersey

• St. Patrick Church, Jersey City
• St. Michael Church, Jersey City
• St. Peter the Apostle Church, New Brunswick

New York

• Church of Saints Peter and Paul, Brooklyn (1847)
• Saint Brigid's Church, Manhattan (1848)
• St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn (1860), northwest corner of Gold and Front Streets^[6]
• St. Francis Xavier Church (Manhattan), 16th Street Manhattan, New York City^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}
• St. Anthony of Padua's Church (Brooklyn, New York)
• Church of St. Stephen and the Sacred Heart (Brooklyn, New York)
• St. Patrick's Church (Brooklyn, New York)
• St. Boniface's Church (Brooklyn, New York)
• St. Charles Borromeo Church (1868), 21 Sidney Place, Brooklyn, "reputedly his 325th church design."^[6]
• Holy Innocents Church, Manhattan
• St. Joseph's Church (Albany, New York)
• Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (Albany, New York), Albany
• St. Bernard's Church (New York City) (1873-1875)

St. Bernard's Church, now Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Bernard's Church (New York City)

• St. Mary Church, Yonkers, NY (an early church by Keely, replaced in 1880)

Ohio

• Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Cleveland
• St. John the Baptist Church, Canton
• Church of St. Francis de Sales, Toledo (Parish closed, 2005, still open for daily noon Mass)

Pennsylvania

• St. Peter Cathedral (1873–1875), Erie
• St. John the Baptist Church, Manayunk
• Church of the Assumption, (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)^[13]

Rhode Island

• Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul (1878), Providence
• St. Joseph Church, Providence
• St. Mary Church, Newport
• St. Charles Borromeo Church, Woonsocket
• St. Mary's Church Complex, Newport (1848)

South Carolina

• St. Patrick Church, Charleston
• Cathedral of Saint John and Saint Finbar, Charleston (1850–1854, burned December 1861), rebuilt as the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist (1907, completed March 2010)

St. Mary's Basilica, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Vermont

• Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Burlington (burned 1973)
• St. Peter Church, Rutland, Vermont
• St. Bridget Church, West Rutland, Vermont^[14]

West Virginia

• Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Parkersburg

Wisconsin

• St. Bernard's Church, Watertown

Canada

• Church of Le Gesù (1865), Montreal, Quebec
• St. Mary's Basilica (1820–1899), Halifax, Nova Scotia

External links

• Keely Society
• St. Mary's Church in Charlestown, MA

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Decker, Kevin F. " Patrick Charles Keely (1816-1896)", University of Plattsburgh, New York (2000)
2. ^ [1] Find a Grave
3. ^ Susan and Michael Southworth, AIA Guide to Boston, Third Edition, (Guildford, Connecticut: GPP, 2008), p.146.
4. ^ Susan and Michael Southworth, AIA Guide to Boston, Third Edition, (Guildford, Connecticut: GPP, 2008), p.155.
5. ^ Susan and Michael Southworth, AIA Guide to Boston, Third Edition, (Guildford, Connecticut: GPP, 2008), p.241.
6. ^ ^{a b} Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins, and David Fishman. New York 1880: Architecture and Urbanism in the Gilded Age. (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1999), p.875
7. ^ Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes: West 16th Street; A Side-Street Surprise: A Monumental Church" New York Times (March 27, 2005)
8. ^ White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0812931076. , p.192
9. ^ St. Francis Xavier Church at www.nyc-architecture.com
10. ^ Saint Francis Xavier: Restoration history
11. ^ Alejandro Bahamón and Àgata Losantos, New York: A Historical Atlas of Architecture (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 2007), p.99.
12. ^ David W. Dunlap, From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan's Houses of Worship. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.) p. 204.
13. ^ http://www.evri.com/media/article;jsessionid=x1txbt36q0v8?title=Historic+Philadelphia+church+to+be+torn+down&page=http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20100911_Historic_Philadelphia_church_to_be_torn_down.html&referring_uri=/person/patrick-keely-0xea408%3Bjsessionid%3Dx1txbt36q0v8&referring_title=Evri
14. ^ http://www.saintbridgetchurch.com/history.htm St. Bridget Church, West Rutland VT

• Francis William Wynn Kervick. “Patrick Charles Keely, Architect: A Record of His Life and Work.” South Bend, Indiana: S.V., 1953.

Persondata
Name	Keely, Patrick Charles
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1816
Place of birth
Date of death	1896
Place of death