[2] St. John's hired Herman Paul Schnetzky, himself a German immigrant from Wriezen, to design the new church.

[2] He and his understudy Eugene R. Liebert[4] designed it in a High Victorian Gothic style similar to what was popular in Germany at the time, perhaps taking cues from the tower of St. Peter's Church in Leipzig.

[citation needed] The main block of the church is gable-roofed with cream brick walls pierced by tall Gothic-arched windows.

Inside, the auditorium is 2.5 stories tall, seating 1100, with a center-aisle layout and the apse at the north end, with an elaborate carved reredos and an elevated pulpit.

The NRHP nomination considers St. John's to be important as an illustration of how Milwaukee's German-American architects were influenced by German architecture of the same period.

The parsonage is two stories, cream brick, in rather simple Queen Anne architectural style.