Stained-glass window and masonry repairs start on historic Lawrence church

photo by: Submitted photo

The Rev. Verdell Taylor stands Sunday, Oct. 4, by the scaffolding that workers will use to remove the church's stained-glass windows so that they can be rehabilitated. The work on the project will also include exterior masonry repair to the church's west facade and northern wall.

The Rev. Verdell Taylor is now witnessing the fruits of a task assigned to him when he arrived in Lawrence 25 years ago as the new pastor of St. Luke African Methodist Episcopal Church.

“I was instructed to get the church on the historical register,” he said of the goal realized in 2005 when St. Luke was placed on the national and Kansas registers of historic places. “We were able to do that because of our association with Langston Hughes.”

Before Hughes gained fame as a leading light in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes attended the church at 900 New York St. with his grandmother and later referred to the church in his poetry and indicated that sermons he heard there influenced his later work, Taylor said.

Taylor said he first viewed the church from the northeast after arriving in Lawrence by train from his previous ministry in Roswell, N.M. He was impressed with the red-brick church at New York and Ninth streets with its two towers and stained-glass windows on its west facade and northern wall. It was far different from churches in New Mexico but similar to those he had known during his childhood in Leavenworth, he said.

photo by: Submitted photo

The sun shines through one of two large stained-glass windows in St. Luke AME Church, 900 New York St. The historic windows are in need of renovation. Work began Monday to remove the windows for repair in a south Hutchison shop.

Although still impressive, the church, which was built in 1910 for $10,000, had slipped into disrepair in the years since Hughes attended. Getting the church on the historic register was a first step in enlisting community support and the partners needed to help with expensive repairs.

From the start, a key player in the community response was Stan Hernly and his Hernly Associates architectural firm, which specializes in the restoration and renovation of historic buildings, Taylor said. Hernly helped with the 2005 assessment that got the church listed on the national and state registers. That was an important step in the church securing $90,000 from the Kansas Historical Society’s Heritage Trust Fund and a $57,750 grant from the Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council.

Hernly said the grant funds would pay for masonry work to the brick exterior on the church’s north wall and west facade, as well as the rehabilitation of the large stained-glass windows on the north wall and facade.

Hoefer’s Custom Stained Glass started removing the two large stained-glass windows Monday, Hernly said. The windows will be taken to Hoefer’s in south Hutchison, where the lead binding the stained-glass pieces will be removed and replaced. Many broken stained-glass pieces will also be replaced.

Hernly said Hoefer’s representatives demonstrated their expertise during an earlier visit to the church.

“They said the glass was from a Kokomo, Indiana, company,” he said. “The company is still around. That’s where Hoefer’s gets its stained glass.”

The contractor that was awarded the bid for the masonry work will start later this month, Hernly said. That work will include tuck-pointing, repairing areas where cracks have developed and addressing sections where the red-brick veneer has pulled away from the wall’s structural wood framing, he said.

The current project is not the first renovation at the church in recent years, nor will it make all of the repairs required, Hernly said.

A project completed in 2010 pulled down a suspended ceiling to once again reveal the tops of the stained-glass windows and the original vaulted ceiling. That project also made roof repairs, refinished the floor in the chapel and installed structural support for exterior walls.

Future projects include $50,000 for a new roof, new downspouts and ornamental flashing replacement, $200,000 to restore the church’s other windows, $145,000 in exterior wall masonry repairs not addressed in the current project, $185,000 for masonry work and structural repairs on the two towers, and $85,000 to improve accessibility for people with disabilities, Hernly said.

That accessibility effort benefited from the city replacing a section of the brick sidewalk on the church’s north side, Hernly said. That allowed the church to alter a side entrance by replacing stairs with a ramp. A chair lift will also be installed near the ramp, which will provide access from the basement to the chapel, he said.

Those wanting to donate to the St. Luke project fund can do so in several ways, he said. The Lawrence Preservation Alliance is donating all of its 2020 membership fees to the St. Luke’s fund. People can also donate through the Douglas County Community Foundation, which has a link on its web page for donations to the church improvement fund, he said.

Taylor said the St. Luke congregation was grateful for the support for the church, which he noted has been part of the community since formerly enslaved people founded the congregation in 1862.

“We’re very excited to be starting on the two projects,” he said. “A lot of work has been done, and there is a lot of work still to be done.”


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