Old St. Hilary's Church

 church, landmark

201 Esperanza Street
Belvedere-Tiburon, CA 94920
(415) 435-2567
www.landmarks-society.org/

In 1888 it took 80 days to build this one-room church, on a rise above the villiage of Tiburon.
The builder was Peter Donahue, whose crews were also building the nearby rail yards. The name of the architect is unknown, but Saint Hilary’s style is typically called Carpenter Gothic and most likely the design came out of a “pattern book,” as virtually identical churches still stand in Montana and in California’s ghost town of Bodie.
Historically, the church’s name refers to France’s fourth-century Bishop of Poitiers, Saint Hilary. (It was also, undoubtedly, a nod to to Hilarita, wife of Dr. Benjamin Lyford, who donated the church’s land.)
The first mass was said 15 September 1895, and the first wedding was performed less than a year later.
In 1911 a bell tower was built behind the church and sometime later a “sanitary privy” was finally added. Both still stand (although the privy no longer functions as such.)
Until 1940, the church had no light, heat or running water.
By the late 1940s Saint Hilary’s was deemed too small to serve the community and a new church was built two miles to the west. To differentiate the two, the original church was renamed Old Saint Hilary’s.
In 1959, thanks to the efforts of the late Susanna Dakin and historian Beverly Bastion, the Belvedere-Tiburon Landmarks Society bought and restored Old Saint Hilary’s as an historic landmark.
The chapel is still available for weddings.

The black and white photo shows the church circa 1890.