Added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 19, 1977

One of the most unforgettable experiences I’ve had during the course of my LA history project was climbing to the top of the belfry of the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre. Up a rickety wooden staircase, up a ricketier ladder and through a trapdoor, there’s a small bell salvaged from the wreck of the City of Dublin ship, which had foundered off the Oregon coast in 1878. It’s been there since this church’s first year. Right next to it is the larger bell they use today for the Angelus. That one was presented by the children of the church, and dedicated just in time for Christmas of 1898. Up there, I got a closeup view of the hand-made machinery of sacred work. That small bell had once served men at sea, and now called them back to shore, religiously-speaking. For someone like me who is moved by metaphor and wordplay, climbing up into that belfry couldn’t have been any more special. Church of the “Ascension” indeed.

Built in 1888, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension is the oldest religious structure in Sierra Madre, predating the historic First Congregational Church by two years – though as we’ll talk about in a moment, the church we see today wasn’t the first one here. 

Sierra Madre’s Episcopal congregation had been around since 1885. At their very first meeting that spring, about a dozen neighbors gathered at the home of Miss Frances Hawks, one of Sierra Madre’s first citizens, to discuss the future of their faith. They brought in a Reverend Trew from San Gabriel to guide the young congregation, and held Sunday services in the local school house until there were enough funds to erect a permanent church.

The congregation settled on the prominent Pasadena architect Harry Ridgway to design Sierra Madre’s first worship space, and friends far and wide came out in force to help them complete it. Miss Hawks herself donated the land. Abbot Kinney, the founder of Venice and creator of the original Venice Canals, donated a stained glass window for the chancel. San Gabriel’s Church of Our Saviour sent over an organ, and Chaplain Kendig of the Presidio in San Francisco gifted them the City of Dublin bell. Construction went quickly, and opening services were held on February 10, 1886.

This was the very early days of Sierra Madre. It was only a few years before that the city’s founder, Nathaniel Carter, had purchased the three chunks of acreage that would become Sierra Madre from Elias “Lucky” Baldwin, a settler named John Richardson and the Southern Pacific railroad. There’s a photo hanging in the parish hall that shows the Church of the Ascension in 1886, and all you can see in the background are the San Gabriel Mountains and a single house – that’s Nathaniel Carter’s old residence, “Carterhia.”

The original church was cute but flimsy. It lasted just a year and eight months before collapsing in a heavy windstorm on October 10, 1887. So when it came time to rebuild, the congregation knew it needed a home made of much hardier materials that could withstand the elements. 

This time the Sierra Madre Episcopalians hired Ernest Coxhead – an English transplant who had recently completed the National Register-listed Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights, and would also give us Pasadena’s blissful Church of the Angels. Within a couple years, Coxhead ended up moving to the Bay Area and developing a reputation for handsome townhouses, covered in shingles. But during his brief time in LA, it was all churches, all the time.

The cornerstone was laid in April of 1888, and by November of that same year, the congregation was praying inside it. It went up quickly, and cheaply – for just $5000 – thanks to the many hours of voluntary labor provided by Sierra Madreans. 

Coxhead designed the congregation a Norman-style church, with some traditional gothic touches in the steeple and pointed arches you see all over it – so bits and pieces of different styles of medieval church architecture, but on a human scale, more akin to an English country church in that way. It’s built of fieldstone, sourced from the Santa Anita Wash, with structural beams of douglas fir, known for its strength and resilience. You’ll also see plenty of stained glass, very gothic, including some of the original glass from 1888 on the south and east sides. 

The Church of the Ascension is laid out in a traditional cruciform pattern, with the altar on the east, rows of pews stretching back on the east-west axis, and stubbier “transepts” extending north and south. Inside the nave, you really feel the warmth of the wood, especially in the circular apse above the altar. It feels like you’re praying inside a fancy barn, or perhaps a ship. 

As the congregation grew, so did the Church of the Ascension. The north transept was enlarged in 1913, and a new organ chamber was built. In the early 1920s, they hired Carleton Winslow (best known in LA for completing the Central Library) to add the parish hall and some other rooms on the north side. 

Three decades later, in 1951, Winslow’s son, Carleton Winslow Jr., came in to extend the rear of the nave to accommodate more seating. While Winslow Jr.’s addition looks differentiated from the original walls by its stucco siding, it all feels of a piece, because the roof blends in seamlessly with the rest of the building. Same goes for the inside: you can see where the original rock wall ends and Winslow Jr.’s wood begins, but the stain and quality of the wood match the rest of the nave so well that it all just works.

That attention paid to preserving the historic feel of this church whenever there’s an addition has carried on through the decades. One congregant told me that when they added the north courtyard some years ago, they found stone in a local quarry that matched the style and color of the stone from Coxhead’s original building.

This church building has endured a lot. It was born out of that horrible windstorm in 1887; in 1991, an earthquake centered in Sierra Madre tore the belfry away from the rest of the structure; just two days after I visited, the Eaton Fire that ate up Altadena also destroyed a number of Sierra Madre homes, just blocks northwest.

Part of the credit for the Church of the Ascension’s ongoing existence must go to the architects and structural engineers and their 135+ years of smart decisions. But I think the resilience of this building has just as much to do with the congregation that inhabits it, raises the money to repair it, and welcomes new people into the congregation who learn to love it, too.

So look, I’m Jewish. I can’t accept the Eucharist, and I have no plans to join the Episcopal church. But when I stopped by Church of the Ascension for a Sunday service, the woman sitting a couple pews back helped me find the right page in the hymnal, and the Deacon wished me a happy Hanukkah when I told him my religious background, and the Rector let me pull the rope to ring that City of Dublin bell. They were all so kind and welcoming to a perfect stranger from a different faith. That kindness is their fieldstone; that welcoming-ness is their douglas fir.

As I clambered up the steep wooden staircase to the belfry, I thought about all the different people who have heeded those bells’ call to worship since this church was built. Regular folks who came – and still come – for the solace, the guidance, the community they can find within the sturdy walls of this very special church.

Thank you to The Reverend Canon Deacon Ed Sniecienski, The Very Reverend Canon Michael A. Bamberger, M. Div. and the Episcopal Church of the Ascension congregation for welcoming me into their sacred space and letting me snoop around.

PS: This church was also used for some pivotal scenes in John Carpenter’s classic horror film The Fog. See one of them here.

Resources & Recommended Reading

+ Bowen, Edith Blumer, Sierra Madre Historical Society, Ed.: “Annals of Early Sierra Madre” (Sierra Madre Historical Society, 1950 – via Internet Archive)

+ Hawks, Daisy E.: “History of the Episcopal Church” in “Annals of Early Sierra Madre” (Sierra Madre Historical Society, 1950 – via Internet Archive)

+ “Church of the Ascension, Sierra Madre, Cal.” (PDF – American Architect and Building News, December 29, 1888 – via US Modernist)

+ Episcopal Church of the Ascension website

+ Episcopal Church of the Ascension: “The Second Sunday after Christmas, January 5, 2025” (brochure – handed out during church services)

+ Hawks, Daisy E.: “History of the Episcopal Church” in “Annals of Early Sierra Madre” (Sierra Madre Historical Society, 1950 – via Internet Archive)

+ Northwest Power & Conservation Council: “Sources and notes for shipwrecks map” (www.nwcouncil.org)

+ Sitton, Tom, LA County Museum of Natural History: Episcopal Church of the Ascension’s NRHP nomination form