Nave Mausoleum - St. Joseph, Missouri - Victorian Style Architecture on Waymarking.com

The Nave mausoleum, constructed in Victorian eclectic style in 1901, is certainly one of the more interesting structures in Mount Mora. It is built of dolomite limestone in a long rectangle with the short end facing the street and a wing appended to either side at a lower height.

The roof of the main block is unique with a tall, gabled shape composed of the usual roof slabs, but whose ends have been cut in an inward bevel above a very narrow beginning course without a bevel. The whole rises, tier-on-tier, to a broad flat capstone. The roof stones rest above a pronounced cavetto cornice with as narrow molded stringcourse. The flanking wings (in which are found the longwise crypts on the interior) have a deeply cut outward bevel on the large single capstone that is the roof of each. The cornice on the projecting wings is composed of many bands of molded pattern above three courses of rock-faced coursing. A wide, smooth dressed outward bevel course sets above a similar, but rock-faced course. The final base coursing is of massive rock-faced blocks projecting beyond the walls above.

Centered on the street-facing end of the center building structure is a very decorative entrance pavilion. The cavetto cornice sits well below that of the main, block and is carved from a single flat stone, above which is a triangular-shaped stone with the raised lettered name "NAVE. The narrow architrave, supported on two delicate-looking black granite columns polished to a high luster, has the carved words in raised letters "AD MAJOREM GLORIAM. The huge abacus of each column capital has numerals carved in the face - on the left abacus "19 and on the right "01 ". At the same level is found a wide band course of carved stone molding which dies into the return at the side wings, then emerges at the rear and continues around to mid-level with a single window centered at the rear of the main block. The crocket-patterned capital with its stylized foliation is unlike any other in the cemetery. Each simple base of limestone rests on huge projecting base blocks with a rock-faced finish. The whole rests on a large stone slab stoop with two stone steps down to grade. The square recessed entry opening has paired brass grille doors with floreate patterns and quatrefoils worked into the openwork pattern. Behind these are paired flat-slab limestone doors with decorative brass pulls. The interior is faced with smooth limestone panels. Each of the side crypts and the window has a decorative molded surround with a Doric pattern. The walls rise to a gentle inward-curving cornice supporting a single dressed stone slab ceiling. Each crypt facing has decorative bronze pulls. The window has a clear glass single pane (which may not be original) with a bronze grille. Beneath the window, a console shelf projects narrowly into the room with a simply carved, freestanding marble cross resting upon it.