John Pierce Archer, a devout Christian, feels right at home living in a former church in Mt. Jewett.
“This feels cozy and comfy,” Archer said as he showed off his home in the former St. Margaret Episcopal Church at 13 Gallup Ave. “It’s my fortress of solitude.”
Archer, a world-renown art curator whose primary home is in Palm Beach, Fla., purchased the Mt. Jewett church Dec. 30, 2006.
“I’ve been looking for churches to buy for years before I found this one listed on Ebay,” Archer said. An Episcopalian, Archer said finding the church in Mt. Jewett was an “epiphany.”
In which diocese did this church reside?
WHo is the bishop who sold it?
What is the history of the congregation that worshipped in this church?
It appears to be in the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania. TEC still includes it on a diocesan list:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/directory_11288_ENG_HTM.htm
Scary to sell it on eBay?
Yes, NWPA. The TEC list only gives St. John’s, Kane… and if you click on that, it is served by a “Dean.” So it is probably a town in which the TEC churches have declined, St. Margaret’s to closure. Did a bit of Googling but can’t find much history, but it is probably just a typical tale of an aging, declining church or a declining town or both.
TEC does still show it, down a bit from Kane and independently here:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/directory_34351_ENG_HTM.htm
This story gave me a kind of eerie feeling of a future TEC. A lone individual holed up in each church, nice and “cozy” in his “fortress of solitude.” Appreciating the architecture.
#4 Your link even showed:
Clergy: Matthew W., Ryan
You don’t suppose he or one of the vestry flogged the church on Ebay do you?
Strictly it still has an Episcopal congregation I suppose – of at least one.
Did 815 sign the papers for the sale? I’d hate to think of the title problems if not….
It is sad to see sacred places converted to profane use, but it seems to have a good caretaker. That kind of rehab ain’t cheap.
That reminded me somewhat of a church in Pittsburgh that I think was Roman Catholic. It was deconsecrated and sold and turned into a Brewery and Restaurant. http://www.churchbrew.com/
I actually went there for lunch out of morbid curiosity a few years ago. I was put off by it because, even though it was technically deconsecrated, it was being used for its churchiness, so to speak. The main beer brew vats were placed intentionally where the main altar had once been. Sitting there drinking a beer, looking up at stained glass windows of saints, I though it was creepy.
Creepy, eerie, or whatever, it may well be a trend of the future. For me, the interesting part was how it was being hawked on eBay. A sign of the times. And the omens aren’t good for TEC.
Hmmm. Two priests from SD have weighed in here already. You gotta wonder how many little rural churches in places like SD might go on the auction block in the not-so-distant future (except in Brookings and Sioux Falls, of course).
David Handy+