The First Baptist Church of Tarrytown is located on South Broadway (U.S. Route 9) in Tarrytown, New York, United States. It is a stone building in the Victorian Gothic architectural style dating to the 1870s. In 1983 it and its rectory were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Congregants first met in the 1840s. The first church on the present site was erected in 1847. A quarter-century later Russell Sturgis was commissioned to design the present structure, which took five years to complete, including a detailed Gothic interior. It signaled Tarrytown's development as a suburb, especially after John D. Rockefeller and members of his family moved to the village and joined the church. They made possible some of its later enhancements, such as its landscaping and rectory, both added later.
Buildings and grounds
The lot shared by the church and rectory is at the southeast corner of the intersection of South Broadway and East Elizabeth Street, on the southeast edge of downtown Tarrytown. Across the street is Christ Episcopal Church, an 1830s brick Gothic Revival structure also listed on the Register. The neighborhood is a mix of commercial, institutional and residential use. There is an affordable housing project to the southwest, single-family houses to the east, north and south along Broadway, and commercial buildings to the northwest. The terrain slopes westward towards the Hudson River.
Exterior
The church is a single-story structure of ashlar-patterned bluestone with brownstone trim, topped with a gabled roof shingled in slate. Its main block is three bays wide on the east elevation, eleven on the north and nine on the west. A tower is attached to the southwest corner.
On the west (front) facade a small porte-cochère with brownstone columns, arched entries and buttresses shelters the main entrance. To its south is a lancet window. Above it is a large rose window. A narrow double casement window is in the gable apex. A bluestone chimney rises from the east end of the south wall of the nave.
The east end of the apse has four windows. Sheds with asphalt roofs line both north and south on the first floor; above them are the only plain glass windows on the structure. The north side has a porch with elongated Gothic columns topped by foliate capitals. Its ceiling has narrow, diagonal boards with dark stain.
There are four stages to the tower. Its base is square-shaped, with one central lancet window on the west complementing the larger one to its north on the main block. The second stage has no windows. At the third stage the tower becomes octagonal, with narrow casement windows in alternating facets. The elongated fourth stage has the same windows on the other facets at its bottom and round-arched louvered windows near the top with brownstone in between them. Atop the tower is a slender spire shingled in slate, pierced by four smaller copper-roofed gabled dormer windows. A copper finial and cross tops the spire.
Interior
The church's interior makes extensive use of Honduran mahogany carved with Gothic details. In the sanctuary it is used for the wainscoting, exposed hammerbeam rafters, organ screen and molded hood above the organ. The lectern and pulpit are original, as are the pews.
There is a stencilled cornice line border and large yellow sunflower between all but one of the rafters. The wooden screen across the back was added later and uses classical motifs. It has stained glass panels with dark oak surrounds and a denticulated cornice on top. Double doors in the center are topped with a pediment containing a clock.
The outside entrance to the base of the tower has been closed. It may be accessed instead via an entrance from the narthex. The space is used for storage. It retains its original hardwood narrow-board flooring and gas chandelier of brass and frosted glass with a Greek key design. A ladder leads to the upper stages of the tower.
North of the apse is a room called the lecture hall on the original plans. It has dark wooden walls and sliding doors, in contrast to the ceiling's golden oak curved rafters that converge at a decorative element. Other features include chamfered door stiles, wooden louvers for the stained-glass windows, and brass door hardware.
Rectory
The rectory is located to the south of the church. It is a two-story three-by-four-bay Roman brick structure with wooden trim and granite stringcourses, sills and lintels. Windows are double-hung sash. It is topped with a hipped roof shingled in red Vermont slate. One segmental-arched dormer window pierces each facet of the roof.