St. Philip Catholic Church

St Philip the Apostle church is a Roman Catholic church located in Occidental, California. In the late 1800s the Catholic population of the Occidental area was served by the Church of the Assumption in Tomales. With the influx of a large number of Italian and Irish immigrants, there was a growing movement to build a church in Occidental. When the Asti family donated a plot of land to the diocese of San Francisco for a church, Father John Rogers, pastor of Assumption, took on the responsibility of building the church. He hired Shea and Shea, a firm of architects from San Francisco to draw the plans and hired the Neles Brothers from Bodega as contractors. Local workers were hired to do the work and the church was completed in December 1902. It was dedicated by the coadjutor bishop of San Francisco in June 1903…the official opening of the church. St. Philip remained a mission of Assumption for nineteen years. For a short time it was a mission of St. Elizabeth, Guerneville and then was placed under the auspices of St. Sebastian’s Church in Sebastopol for forty years.

St. Philip has been restored and lovingly cared for. Today it retains most of the beautiful original woodwork and charming details.