Church of Our Savior

Mammoth St, Brookline, MA

Historic Commercial Residential Foundation Modular Other Structure

The Church of our Savior, is a historic church built in 1868 by two brothers Amos and William Lawrence and located in Brookline, MA The building was designed by Architect Alexander Rice Esty, who is most well known for his Gothic Revivalist churches including Prospect Congregational church (now Christ the King Church) in Cambridge MA, St John’s Episcopal Church in Framingham MA, Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Cambridge MA, and First Methodist Church in Burlington VT. 

The project of a general restoration of the church was first taken on by LEDA management. Though there was damage to much of the church due to general age and water damage Frank was called in to specifically address the structural concerns regarding the entryway to the cloister. There was significant settling of the structure, which caused instability to the archway, potentially endangering visitors to the church.

It was discovered, the cloister archway foundation was not founded as deep as the rest of the church. Due to this the entryway foundation was sitting on inferior soils, resulting in settling and instability. Frank was tasked with finding a solution that would solve not only the initial settlement of the archway, but also address the foundation’s instability to prevent  settling from continuing. 

It was determined a mason should number and disassemble the entryway stonework. Grout Piers were then injected to stabilize the soil without potentially disturbing the existing soils under the adjacent church foundation.  Finally with great care, the mason resembled the entryway structure by hand to ensure the structure was as close as possible to the original.