Workers in Covington, Ky., are installing the final features of a two-year restoration of the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, a Catholic landmark nicknamed “America’s Notre Dame” for its French Gothic exterior modeled on the Paris original. New terra cotta gargoyles — replicas cast from precise scans of 32 worn originals — have been fitted to the cathedral’s towering facade in recent weeks, with 26 rooftop chimeras remaining as the final step before a targeted March completion.
The $7.8 million project, backed by more than 2,000 donors and private foundations, represents the most comprehensive exterior overhaul in the 125-year-old cathedral’s history, aiming to preserve one of the country’s most ambitious examples of French Gothic Revival architecture for coming generations.
“We consider ourselves blessed to be able to ensure the cathedral is taken care of for coming generations,” said the Very Rev. Ryan Maher, the cathedral’s rector.
Stone, steel and a century of weathering
The restoration addresses slow deterioration of the cathedral’s Indiana limestone, metal and terra cotta after more than a century of exposure to the elements along the Ohio River, across from Cincinnati. Maher said he recognized in 2018 that a major effort was needed when he found a large piece of fallen stone — evidence of wider deterioration.
Workers, operating cranes above a busy city street through summer heat and winter cold, have repaired and replaced tons of limestone, sourcing new stone from Bedford, Ind., where material for the original cathedral was quarried. Precise scans of deteriorated finials, arches, balustrades and other elements allowed stonecutters to produce exact matches.
To secure the stone, workers replaced the original carbon steel pins and brackets — which had rusted over the decades — with more durable stainless steel.
“It’s hard to believe that you’re able to replicate a piece that was built a hundred years ago by men that are no longer with us,” said Brian Walter, executive vice president of Trisco Systems, the prime contractor. “It’s an art and a science that’s passed down from generation to generation. Every part of it is challenging.”
A Belgian bishop’s grand ambition
The Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption opened in 1901, the product of Belgian-born Bishop Camillus Paul Maes, head of the Diocese of Covington, who admired the French Gothic style and sought a sanctuary grand enough to reflect what he described as a medieval vision of a cathedral as “heaven on earth.” He intended to accommodate the diocese’s rapidly growing immigrant Catholic population.
The exterior follows the proportions and details of Notre Dame de Paris — pointed arches, flying buttresses, gargoyles and chimeras — though adapted to a smaller scale. The Covington cathedral is just under half the size of its Parisian model and lacks the original’s twin towers. Its high-vaulted interior draws from a different Paris landmark: the Basilica of Saint-Denis.
The cathedral’s fantastical stone creatures differ from their Parisian counterparts in one functional respect. The gargoyles on Notre Dame de Paris double as rainspouts; those on the Covington sanctuary are purely decorative.
When construction began, Covington had just over 40,000 residents — roughly the same as today, said Stephen Enzweiler, the cathedral’s historian. “At the time, no one had ever heard of Covington,” he said.
A ‘surprisingly high quality’ example of Gothic Revival
The cathedral was part of a broader Gothic Revival movement around the turn of the 20th century that also produced landmark churches including St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
Duncan Stroik, an architect, professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame and author of The Church Building as a Sacred Place: Beauty, Transcendence and the Eternal, said the Covington cathedral stands as an unusually accomplished product of that era.
“This is a smaller version of that revival of French Gothic in America, done at a very high level in a little town at the time, of surprisingly high quality,” Stroik said. “It shows the talent of the bishop, the architect and the craftsmen.”
Maher said the cathedral’s broader role in the community made fundraising for the restoration relatively straightforward.
“It was kind of an easy sell, because of what the cathedral means to not only our parishioners but to the whole community,” he said. “When everything is upside down, this is a place where people can experience the calm of the Lord.”