It was originally built as a Gothic Revival Episcopal church from locally mined Rosendale cement, a material which covers the stonework exterior walls.

[2] On the exterior, the most prominent feature is the steeply pitched gable decorated with a scroll-sawn triangular insert with a central quatrefoil and three surrounding trefoils.

On the west is a hexagonal spire paneled in a simple Gothic motif down at the base and louvered at the top, and a four-by-two-bay, architecturally sympathetic wing added in the 1970s, not considered contributing due to its lack of age.

In 1874, St. Peter's Episcopal Church in nearby Stone Ridge established St. John's Mission to serve worshippers there, and within two years it had grown enough to warrant its own chapel.

[1] In the 1980s, after the property was listed on the Register, the New York State Legislature passed legislation, signed by then-governor Mario Cuomo, permitting the creation of a special library district.

The arches and brick surrounds of the windows are also consistent with the vernacular styles of churches built by congregants of English descent in the Hudson Valley.

The rubblestone, normally left bare in such structures, was instead covered over with Rosendale cement, suggesting a desire to showcase a locally produced building material that had made many residents and congregants prosperous.