Published: May 20, 2008 06:36 pm         

Historic church plans landmark renovations

By Tommy Mann Jr.

The Orange Leader



A local church, which was founded approximately 130 years ago, is about to get a touch up.

After many months of planning and preparations, the First Presbyterian Church is nearly ready to start reportedly more than $6 million worth of renovations to many sections of the historic church — most notably the beautiful stained glass windows.

“The windows, which are part of the sanctuary, were all originally made off-site, then shipped here and assembled approximately 100 years ago,” said Kyle Hood, a church member and volunteer. “The three large windows on the front of the building are the ones Mrs. (Frances Ann) Lutcher purchased at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. These prize winning windows were created by Lamb Studio, and which is who we have hired to clean, repair and restore these windows now.”

First Presbyterian Church was founded by local citizens in the spring of 1878. Initially, the church met in members’ homes before moving into a wood-frame building on Market Street, near the Sabine River.

After Lutcher attended the world’s fair in Chicago with her two daughters, Miriam Stark and Carrie Brown, which is where she purchased the three prize winning stained glass windows, Lutcher solely funded the construction of a new church on Green Avenue. That construction began in 1908 and was completed in 1912.

According to Hood, Lutcher never made it public how much construction costs for the church were and even went so far as to have a code created which was only known to a handful of people. This was how the bills were paid for construction — which is why it remains unknown to this day how much the historical site cost to create.

Prior to Hurricane Rita, the church was in the early stages of making plans to have all of the stained glass windows cleaned, repaired, re-leaded and restored. Due to debris damage to the church’s copper dome and other areas, the plans have changed and will include much more work.

At a press conference on Tuesday morning, Jim Newton, head of the church’s restoration committee, informed invited guests of some of the church’s plans for renovations.

“Originally, the dome on top of the church was built as a glass dome before it was eventually covered with copper,” Newton said. “The church has decided to restore the structure back to a glass dome since the storm peeled back sections of the copper. If you know how a can of tuna used to open and roll back, then that is what the copper sections looked like.”

The church is historic for many reasons, perhaps most notably for being one of the first air conditioned buildings in the world.

At the time, a large enough power plant was not available to produce energy to run the air conditioning, so Lutcher had a two-story granite building constructed behind the church as an on-site electrical generating plant. She even hired an engineer to run “The Power House” as it became known.

“We need to improve the air conditioning,” Newton said Tuesday. “We also need to bring some of the equipment in the basement into code compliance. There is a lot of work to be done.”

The church was built in the Greek Revival design popular at the time, and materials used for construction included pink granite from Llano, Texas, and marble cut from living stone which was shipped to Orange from Italy.

The exterior copper dome was installed in 1957 to stop leaks and protect the stained glass windows in the dome from the elements. These 16 beautifully crafted stained glass windows each depict an angelic figure with a different Christian symbol. Some windows have broken pieces missing courtesy of Rita.

The center of the 16 angels is another stained glass window, but is nearly indiscernible because of debris damage from the storm and time.

“These windows are sagging to some degree, and probably the most urgent need,” Newton said. “We will need to remove and repair the windows from throughout the building.”

Hood said the stained glass windows in the sanctuary are not Tiffany glass, but are, instead, opalescent stained glass and are constructed in two and, sometimes, four layers. Although the glass gives off a smooth appearance, many sections are very textured.

“We knew this entire renovation project was going to be a monstrous job,” Hood said. “It will have to be done in phases because there is just so much to be done. They said it will take close to a year just for the stained glass and work to be done in the dome.”

Hood said the Carrie Lutcher Brown Foundation is helping with much of the renovation costs, which could exceed $6 million, but the church hopes to start a congregation fundraiser very soon and may consider pursuing grants to cover the remaining costs as well.

“We’re just getting the estimates at this time, and still firming up the plans,” she said. “It will be a number of months before we are ready to start any serious work.”

The renovation project is expected to be completed by 2012 in order to celebrate the church’s centennial anniversary.



Reach this reporter at 409-883-3571, Ext. 2619 or tmann@orangeleader.com

     

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