St. Francis Xavier
Stillwater, Oklahoma
Completed in 2018, this new American Gothic Style church is rapidly settling into the prairie landscape on the edge of a bustling college town.
Designed to accommodate the merging of two local parishes, this new complex facilitates the administrative offices, has a large educational wing as well as a youth center with a gymnasium, a generous parish hall to seat 240, a Perpetual Adoration Chapel and a large sanctuary to accommodate 900.
The interior of the church features 52’ high soaring ceilings with a series of decorative ribs. Spacious ambulatories with a series of tall lancet windows and gothic vaults are framed by soaring piers supporting upper gothic arches and bands of quatrefoils at the triforium level. Transepts provide additional lighting and seating as well as a higher level of decoration commensurate with this style of architecture. New custom liturgical furniture carved by the Italian company Ferdinand Stuflesser features a reredos with multiple statues and angels, an altar, ambo, Mary & Joseph shrines, additional shrines for 6 others Saints and custom frames for Stations of the Cross holding giclée’s by artist Leonard Porter.
The exterior palate is in keeping with the local indigenous stone which has a range of brown and red. A custom blend of 5 different brick colors are used in combination with precast limestone to respond to the local vernacular and to give the building a level of ornamentation appropriate for an American Gothic church. The church is crowned with a pair of towers and spires with the cross on the tallest spire reaching the height of 157’, making it visible for several miles.
