photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Carpenter Joseph Matthews, left, climbs a scaffolding at St. Luke AME church, 900 New York Street, on Nov. 30, 2021.

You could argue, stained glass windows in a church are like icing is to a cake. If so, members of St. Luke AME church in East Lawrence are about to get their sweet rewards.

Construction crews were on site at the church on Tuesday installing a mix of new and refurbished stained glass panes at St. Luke, 900 New York St. It is the near culmination of a process that began about a year ago.

“I know everyone has been anxious for the last year without the windows being there and really having a hard time understanding why it is taking so long to get the glass,” said Stan Hernly, the Lawrence-based architect overseeing the historic preservation project. “Once they are back in, everybody is going to breathe a sigh of relief.

“And I think everybody is going to be surprised at how the windows look.”

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

The recently refurbished west windows of St. Luke AME are shown on Nov. 30, 2021. The windows will have a protective layer of glass placed over them before the work is completed.

Hernly said that even partially installed, the stained glass windows look great, but their beauty will rise to another level once they are fully installed later this week. He’s looking forward to the first sunset upon the refurbished windows, which are original to the church’s construction in 1910.

“I think the real impact is going to be late in the evening when the sun comes through the big west windows and all the color washes over the pews,” Hernly said. “It is just going to be a greatly illuminated place, and a great place for worship.”

Scott Hoefer, owner of South Hutchinson-based Hoefer Custom Stained Glass, said he’s already seen the refurbished stained glass backlit at night.

“It has wanted to shine like that for at least 50 years,” he said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Scott Hoefer, owner of Hoefer Custom Stained Glass, explains some of the details of the west window of the historic St. Luke AME building in East Lawrence on Nov. 30, 2021.

Hoefer said the project has taken a while because getting stained glass is never an easy task, but it was made more complicated by the pandemic. Stained glass suppliers are limited, and Hoefer had one in particular that he wanted to do business with — the same Kokomo, Ind.-based manufacturer that supplied the glass for the original windows in the early 1900s.

“This is all about being historically accurate,” Hoefer said of the project.

Historic preservation indeed has been a key component of the project, but historic perseverance has been a key driver of the project. Hernly has been doing architectural work for the church for nearly 20 years. He wrote the report in 2005 that recommended the brick church badly needed masonry repairs and that the stained glass windows were at risk of breaking as the framing buckled and bowed.

A mere 15 years later, both the masonry and stained glass window projects got started. While the wait hasn’t necessarily been fun, Hernly said he’s enjoyed watching how so many different groups have contributed time and money to the project, which now has a total cost of about $288,000.

Those groups have included the Lawrence Preservation Alliance, the Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council, the Douglas County Community Foundation, Kansas Heritage Trust Fund, church members, and even GoFundMe drives.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Father and son team Curry and Zaide Wells, top, tilt in a refurbished stained glass window pane at St. Luke AME church on Nov. 30, 2021.

This week marks a turning point for the project. Hoefer’s crews are expected to have the bulk of the work– which includes placing a protective glass covering over the exterior of the stained glass — done by the end of the week. A couple of small windows in the tower portion of the church still must be replaced, but that won’t be a major undertaking.

At that point, members of St. Luke’s can begin planning for the resumption of services in the historic church. But that won’t mean a complete end of the construction work. Hernly said funds are being raised and plans are basically complete for a chair lift that will provide better access for all to the church’s basement. The basement includes a kitchen and fellowship area, but also is expected to be home to a significant new offering — a pair of rooms that will serve as a resource center about famed writer and poet Langston Hughes, who attended St. Luke as a child in Lawrence.

“The construction on those rooms are finished, and some of the resources are starting to go in,” Hernly said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Nearly all of the glass for the St. Luke AME restoration project came from the same Kokomo, Ind. factory that produced the windows originally in the early 1900s. The red ribbon was made from a special glass from Germany. The letters and crosses are formed on the glass by using a sandblaster to remove the red layer from the glass.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Crews from Hoefer Custom Stained Glass work on the north window of St. Luke AME church on Nov. 30, 2021.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

A mix of colors and shadings are a characteristic of the more than 100 year old stained glass windows at St. Luke AME church near Ninth and New York streets in East Lawrence.