Stumbled on this RPPC this afternoon and was floored.

It’s the Episcopal Church in Webster city, IA. A brief search failed to establish when it was built, though the character of the postcard itself suggests perhaps as late as the 1950s. I want, oh, so desperately, for it to have been much earlier, for its similarity with Agincourt’s Episcopal Church of Saint Joseph the Carpenter.

I have seen two A-frame buildings in eighty years of life, a lot of experience, I believe, as an observer. The first is the Bennati Cabin (probably spelled wrong but in Lake Tahoe) by architect Rudolph Schindler. We’ve all seen A-frames, in builders magazines or Popular Mechanics, and wondered how invention was possible in such a concept. Then, as an undergraduate at the University of Oklahoma in the early ’60s, in Ester McCoy’s book Five California Architects I saw the Bennati Cabin and was convinced it could not be bettered. Until a few years later when Nathaniel Owings’ home on the California Coast appeared in House Beautiful (again, I think) and realized the nature of innovation. So, a few days ago, I happen upon this Episcopal church in Iowa and expanded my appreciation for what may be possible.

See what I mean?

BTW, the building doesn’t appear on the 1915 Sanborn Insurance Map of Webster City.

<more later, soon, I hope>