A true log building, not simply log faced, Pine Creek Baptist Church was part of a nostalgic revival of the log cabin style which took place in the 1930s. Commissioned by architects
Tourtellotte and Hummel, the church is one of the very few examples of its type in Idaho, most having been created as commercial strictures, a few as residences.
Tourtellotte and Hummel were two of the most important Idaho architects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, responsible for such Idaho icons as the Idaho State House, the Boise Carnegie Library, St. John's Cathedral and the classic Egyptian Theatre. However, the designers of this church weren't likely to have been the original partners, John E. Tourtellotte & Charles F. Hummel. Joining Tourtellotte in 1901, in 1922 Charles Hummel left the partnership, to be replaced by one of Hummel's sons, Frank K. Hummel. Tourtellotte himself left the partnership in 1930, leaving the younger Hummel to continue the firm of Tourtellotte & Hummel. The firm closed during the second world war but reopened in 1946 as Hummel, Hummel & Jones. It remains in business today as
Hummel Architects.
While the main section of the building is built of logs with dovetailed corners, later additions, likely from the 1950s, though of the same material, lacked the dovetailed corners.
It is likely that many of the 1930s log buildings, particularly churches, used logs as an economic measure, allowing a congregation to build a church using gifted logs and volunteer labour, thereby incurring very little actual cost. A congregation containing a few skilled craftsmen could build a church for almost nothing, the only real expense being for a bell to hang in their belfry, or possibly a stained glass window or two.
Built as a Baptist church, sometime in the recent past the congregation split from the baptists and describes itself as an "
autonomous body of believers" Their stated purpose in life is "
to promote the establishment of a New Testament church among every tongue, tribe, people, and nation".
Pine Creek Baptist Church
The Pine Creek Baptist Church (now Pinehurst Baptist Church) is a rectangular structure with solid log walls, front-facing gables covered with rustic shingles, and a small square pyramidal-roofed belfry straddling the ridge beam near the apex of the front gable. The twenty-five-by-forty-foot body of the church has full dovetail-notched corners. Front and rear additions are of matching materials but have plain mitred corners; they were probably made when the basement was excavated some time before 1956.
A rectangular rear section is centered and outset at the rear. At center front is a shallow enclosed porch with a gabled roof projecting over a large concrete stoop with lateral flights of steps. A hip-roofed basement entry is offset at right front. The frame belfry on the roof has shingled lower walls and louvered upper panels.
The interior is still distinguished by exposed log walls and baptistry, although it has been remodeled with new ceilings, carpet, and pews. The nave windows are small and square with plain pebbled translucent panes; those in the rooms to the rear are multi-light casements.
From the NRHP Architectural Inventory Form