[2] By the 1872 the parish needed a larger building, and the Holy Cross Fathers sent Reverend William Corby to St. Bernard's as pastor, charged with getting a new church built.

[3] Keely designed the church in High Victorian Gothic style, characterized by the emphasis on vertical lines, the pointed-topped arches, and the polychromatic masonry.

The floor plan is generally rectangular, with a large square entrance tower at the front and a polygonal apse at the back.

In the 1890s German immigrant Hermann Michalowski painted large murals of St. Francis, St. Bernard, St. Patrick, and St. Elizabeth on panels in the apse.

[5] The building is cream brick, with a two-story entry pavilion with corner cylinders like the rolls of a scroll, topped with a stone cross.