{"nrhp_refnum":"11000623","name":"Christ Episcopal Church","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"3430 Old US 70","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cleveland","county":"Rowan County","state":"NC","lat":35.73154636250007,"lon":-80.66573969944434,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2011-12-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A rural Episcopal church complex just east of Cleveland in northwest Rowan County, North Carolina, with a chapel built in 1826-1827, a 1926 parish house, a historic cemetery and an early iron gate.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the property as a long-lived rural congregation whose chapel interior is largely intact from the early nineteenth century. Its buildings show a sequence of styles: early finishes, a late nineteenth-century Gothic Revival refitting, and a 1926 Craftsman exterior. The cemetery holds the graves of the church founders and early members.","narrative":"Christ Episcopal Church occupies ten acres on the east edge of Cleveland in northwest Rowan County, North Carolina. The congregation began in the late eighteenth century, and its weatherboard chapel was built in 1826 and consecrated in August 1827. The bishop called it plain but convenient. In 1926 the chapel and a new Craftsman-style parish house, given by W. Frank Thompson in memory of his mother, were covered in brick veneer and joined by an arcaded breezeway. Isaac Lyerly and his sons did the masonry. The chapel interior remains largely unpainted and intact, with hand-chamfered posts and beams, Gothic-arched stained-glass windows, and woodwork made around 1900 by Rev. Bruce Owens. An enclosed upper gallery was once used by African American worshipers. The grounds include a cemetery of about 300 graves, an early iron and granite gate, brick entrance walls from 1977, and a deodar cedar-lined entrance lane planted in 1946. Together the buildings show changing architectural tastes over a century.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Isaac Lyerly and his sons (masonry work, 1926); Rev. Bruce Owens (woodwork around 1900); parish house funded by W. F. Thompson","architectural_style":"Gothic Revival; Craftsman","criteria":[],"status_note":"Still used as a religious facility with an active cemetery.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:54.521409-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/58/7220/47722058/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/11000623.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/11000623/65bdd3c4f4-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/11000623/65bdd3c4f4-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jon Baker","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_Episcopal_Church,_Cleveland,_NC.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jon Baker</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_Episcopal_Church,_Cleveland,_NC.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47722058","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Episcopal_Church_(Cleveland,_North_Carolina)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19864588"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/rowan-county/christ-episcopal-church-11000623/"}