Richard Upjohn's reputation for the design of Gothic country churches derives largely from projects like St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Brookline. Designed in 1848 and begun in 1851, this church represents the oldest surviving example in New England of Upjohn's masonry Gothic designs. Its simple Gothic detailing constructed of local Roxbury puddingstone provided inspiration for other architects' work, such as Arthur Gilman's St. Paul's Episcopal Church (
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) in Dedham. The effectiveness of the design is in no small part due to its siting, which is at the Y-shaped intersection of two roads that were laid out in coordination with the construction of the church. Several sympathetic additions, beginning with a chapel by Upjohn in 1854, were made to St. Paul's over the years. Tragically, a fire gutted the interior in 1976, at which time the installation of solar panels disfigured the roof. In 1886, Peabody and Stearns added an architecturally sympathetic rectory also constructed of puddingstone with sandstone trim at 130 Aspinwall Avenue.