Starkweather Chapel was designed by architect George 0. Mason, of Detroit. Diminutively scaled red sandstone elements of the style, so typical of the influencial Boston architect H. H. Richardson, may be seen in the foliated architrave over the entrance, the short bundled colonnettes at window and door jambs, gable copings and finials, sills and lintel courses. A short and robust square tower is topped by a hip roof, pierced below its eaves with a clerestory to admit light into the chancel space of the chapel, which in turn is flanked by a semicircular tapered tower containing a circular stair to the roof. The plan is a symmetrical Greek cross, its cruciform space spanned over with hammer-beam trusses with arched bottom members. The chapel was a gift of Mary Ann Starkweather to the community in memory of her late husband. She included four Tiffany art glass windows as additional memorials to other individuals important to her: John 0. Pierce, pioneer Congregational minister, first Superintendent of Public Instruction in Michigan, and an early president of the Normal College; the Reverend Ira M. Weed, first minister of the Presbyterian Church; John Stoughton Newberry, her youngest brother; and her mother, Rhoda Phelps Newberry, from whose brother Mary Ann inherited the fortune which made possible several other significant gifts to the community.