{"nrhp_refnum":"80000855","name":"Church of the Nativity","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"210 Oak Grove Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Menlo Park","county":"San Mateo County","state":"CA","lat":37.46079052300007,"lon":-122.18039889299996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-10-31","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A wooden Gothic Revival Catholic church at 210 Oak Grove Avenue, Menlo Park, California, built in 1872 by James R. Doyle and moved to its present site in 1877-1878.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it the earliest extant wooden Catholic church on the San Francisco Peninsula. Its Early Gothic Revival style shows the regional lag behind eastern architectural fashion. It also served as Menlo Park's first school and as the educational, social and religious center of the early Irish-Catholic community.","narrative":"Church of the Nativity is a redwood Gothic Revival church on Oak Grove Avenue in Menlo Park, painted white and topped by a central bell tower and slender spire. Built in 1872 by James R. Doyle on land at Ringwood Avenue and Middlefield Road, it was moved in two stages in 1877 and 1878 to its current site after the original land was lost to a financial dispute. A brick foundation and a rear addition in 1887 gave it a Latin cross plan, and the rose window and transept glass followed in 1900. Lancet windows, pier buttresses, trefoil tracery and exposed redwood hammerbeam trusses mark its design. It is described as the earliest surviving wooden Catholic church on the San Francisco Peninsula, and it served as Menlo Park's first school before a public school opened in 1875. In the 1950s parishioners resisted plans to replace it, leading to continued care and stabilization.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Original builder James R. Doyle","architectural_style":"Early Gothic Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied and in religious use; stabilized in 1975 at a cost of about a quarter million dollars to retain its original appearance.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:31.554424-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/80000855.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000855/f8ebd816b7-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000855/f8ebd816b7-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"W Nowicki","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_of_the_Nativity_(Menlo_Park,_California).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">W Nowicki</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_of_the_Nativity_(Menlo_Park,_California).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123861498","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Nativity_(Menlo_Park,_California)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5118003"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/san-mateo-county/church-of-the-nativity-80000855/"}