Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes commands attention as the author of the six-volume “Iconography of Manhattan Island,” the most important historical work on New York City. But he was much more than a patrician historian. He was also an architect, and one of his buildings ranks among New York’s finest. Stokes and his partner, John Mead Howells (son of the novelist William Dean Howells), designed St. Paul’s Chapel, built in 1903-07 at Columbia University.

Charles McKim had recently laid out Columbia’s new Morningside Heights campus and had designed many of the university’s early buildings. But he was not permitted to design the chapel, which is behind and a little to the east of Low Library, the centerpiece and pivot of McKim’s multilevel axial plan. The reason was that the chapel was paid for by the philanthropic sisters Olivia and Caroline Phelps Stokes, who insisted that their nephew design it. That sort of thing can be a recipe for disaster. But McKim had established guidelines that other architects were expected to follow, which at least ensured a building in harmony with the rest of the campus. Stokes was also a good architect, good enough to have one great building in him – and this was it.

In its stone-trimmed, redbrick, temple-like form, the chapel may not at first seem so different from its pendant to the west, McKim’s Earl Hall. The chapel is a compact cross in plan, with a shallow dome surmounting a high drum. An intriguing feature is the embedded shells, symbol of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. The glory of the chapel resides within, however, and the interior had nothing to do with McKim’s guidelines.

No New York church save Bertram Goodhue’s St. Thomas excels St. Paul’s for sheer serenity. The interior is basically a rotunda. Thus what the compact form lacks in breadth it makes up in height – though miraculously well proportioned. Look up at the dome. Sixteen stained-glass windows ring the drum. These were the handiwork of D. Maitland Armstrong, who also created the great stained-glass dome of the Appellate Courthouse at Madison Square. In the keystones of the crossing arches we find sculptures by A.A. Weinman of the symbols of the four evangelists. John La Farge gave us the three windows of the chancel; in the center window we see St. Paul preaching to the Athenians, with the Parthenon in the background.

These are the main decorative elements, and they are crucial to the interior’s magnificence. Just as crucial are the materials – Roman brick, terra-cotta, and Guastavino tile. These beautifully absorb the spectral light that floods through the windows of the dome. In what other interior in the city does one feel as though one is bathed in a warm light? A single step into the space induces the meditative state.

The “Iconography,” St. Paul’s, and much more – Stokes could have lived idly on inherited wealth, but instead compiled one of the great resumes in New York history.