A church as famous for its historical and social significance as for its architecture, St. Mary's was built, with the physical help of its working-class parishioners and the financial help of several prominent Catholic families who summered in Newport, in a predictable Gothic Revival style to a design by Patrick Keely, a prolific church architect. Its massive, rough-cut brownstone walls, high-pitched roof, towering steeple, and sculptural entrance reaching out to busy Spring Street served as an imposing symbol of the population changes that immigration brought to Newport in the mid-nineteenth century.