The Historic Architecture of Notre Dame Academy and Convent

Omaha architects Matthew Lahr and Carl Stange designed the red-brick E-shaped condo and convent in 1924 in the late Italian Renaissance Revival style. Its grand staircase features a marble wainscot and terrazzo floor. The bucolic setting, with scenic views of the Iowa bluffs, later functioned as a retreat, conference, and event center before the sisters converted the structure to subsidized senior living units. N

Notre Dame Academy and Convent was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 5, 1998.  This designation came about for two reasons. The first reason is the Architecture of the building itself. The second reason is the contribution the Notre Dame Sisters made to Czech culture in Nebraska. Some of the noteworthy Italian Renaissance Revival style elements of Notre Dame include:

• Two poured concrete belt courses, one that runs the circumference of the building just above the basement windows and a second, with heavy dentil (a series of closely spaced rectangular blocks that form a molding, usually below the cornice but can form a decorative band anywhere on the structure) molding, just below the third story windows.
• Windows that change type and shape on each floor, as exemplified by the arched windows on the first story and straight-headed windows on the second floor.
• Arched and square lintels with voussiers (square shaped stone that makes up part of an arch) and keystones (central stone of an arch), best exemplified on the arched first story windows.
• Portico featuring columns with Corinthian capitals.
• The central projecting portico is capped by a full pediment (low-pitched triangular gable) with broken raking cornice (horizontal molding on top of the building) ornamented with heavy dentil molding and a sculptural image of Mary in the tympanum (a recessed space, usually triangular, enclosed by the slanting cornices of a pediment).
• Segmented fan lights (a semicircular window over a doorway or window).