English: Clarence United Methodist Church, 10205 Greiner Road at Strickler Road, Clarence, New York, February 2023. Although the earliest portions of this sprawling, low-slung complex date to 1962, the sanctuary, seen at right in this photo, was completed eleven years later to an interesting Modernist design by architect Roger Patterson of the Buffalo firm of Shelgren, Patterson & Marzec. It's a 70-foot square structure set at a 45-degree angle relative to the street (a popular feature in the latter part of the architect's career) and capped by a large, ponderous mansard roof which in turn is perforated at the center of each side by enormous columns of reflective stained glass windows that project outward from the exterior wall. Nonetheless, it's the interior whose design is most innovative: Patterson himself likened it to a theater-in-the-round, with air vents, light fixtures, and loudspeakers suspended from the lofty ceiling via enormous beams of dark wood into a chamber whose uniform space, lacking the central focus provided by a traditional nave or chancel, becomes quite customizable and versatile. Belying the newness of its current building is Clarence Methodist's status as what is by some estimates the first church of any denomination ever to have been organized on the Niagara Frontier. It traces its history back to 1807, when the Rev. Peter Van Nest - one of the Methodist "circuit riders" who crisscrossed the wilderness on the edge of America's settled area holding services for small rural communities wherever they could find space - came to town for the first time on record, holding a Sunday meeting in the home of David Hamlin that attracted twelve residents. In 1833, under the leadership of the Rev. Glezen Fillmore, another circuit rider who was a towering figure in Clarence's early history, the congregation was elevated from mission status and built a stone church in Clarence Hollow on the corner of Main Street and Sawmill Road (at the present site of the Mobil gas station), which burned down in 1872 and was replaced the following year by a new structure on the same site. With the mid-20th century shift of middle-class families to suburban living, the suddenly growing Clarence Methodist congregation began planning a move to a larger facility as early as 1956. Originally, they had envisioned a 21-acre complex about a mile and a half down Main Street at the west end of Clarence Hollow, and in 1960 unveiled renderings by Niagara Falls architect Wallace V. Moll for a contemporary-style structure to be built on the site. However, for unknown reasons, these plans were later scrapped, and it was on the five-acre site of the present complex where ground was broken in June 1961.