Oakdale church, sold for $1, is reborn as a custom home

What arguably is the most distinctive home in Oakdale will go on the market this week. The home’s 14-foot-tall, Gothic-style windows face both streets on its corner lot. It’s one of the oldest homes in town at nearly 125 years. And it certainly is the only home with a steeple and church bell rising high above the front door.

In seven months, custom-home builder Allen Martin and his crew transformed the former United Brethren Church, built in 1893, into a three-bedroom, three-bathroom house that is chock full of historic charm but finished with high-end materials in a modern color scheme.

The project began earlier this year when Martin and Century 21 Realtor Denise Cash purchased the church from the city of Oakdale for $1. The building stopped operating as a church shortly before the city purchased it in 1990 with plans to expand City Hall.

The plans never came to fruition and the city in 2015 started looking for a buyer willing to move the building from its downtown lot, where meeting the need for more parking had become the priority.

The church hadn’t been updated for decades and Martin knew remodeling and expanding it would be a lot of work, but it had good bones and he could see the potential.

He bought an 8,000-square-foot corner lot at North First Avenue and Walnut Street and in May had the church moved there from its original location five blocks away. It was a process that cost more than $50,000, took weeks of planning (and more than an hour for the moving truck to haul the church from point A to point B) and required temporarily removing power lines that hung too low for the building to pass under them.

In the months Martin worked on the home, he was approached by people who told him stories about attending services at the church or from people whose parents had been married there.

“So what I wanted to do was keep the (space) pretty well the same so that when somebody walks in ... if they hadn’t been here for 50 years, they would still recognize it,” he said.

The former worship space is unmistakable with its 22-foot-high ceilings and massive windows, but it is now a great room with a 14-foot-long kitchen island topped with Italian marble, custom cabinetry, a bar with a wine fridge and original refinished vertical-grain Douglas fir floors.

Where the cross once hung below a circular window that marked the center of the room is now a stove and hood, which is centered with the farmhouse sink on the island and the light fixtures that hang from the ceiling.

Original wainscoting surrounds much of the room, but what was removed was repurposed. The wood from the wainscoting, along with wood from a platform at the front of the church, was used by Martin and his brother-in-law Gene Forrette to build the cabinets and drawers.

Additional wood that had been stored under the church went to build a vanity in one of the bathrooms and to frame mirrors, and some was incorporated into one of three sliding barn doors in the home.

Martin kept all but one of the church’s Gothic windows; he had to replace stained glass that had cracked in the bottom portion of the windows but maintained the original amber glass in the pointed arches at the top. One window had to be replaced to meet egress requirements, but Martin used the frame to create a mirror that hangs in the entryway.

Next to that mirror, a rope hangs from the ceiling; pull on it and the church bell rings.

Also in what was the original church is a guest bathroom and an upstairs loft that could be used as a third bedroom.

Cash is listing the home for $469,000. The original church was 1,738 square feet and Martin built a 772-square-foot addition, for total square footage of 2,510 square feet.

In those additions is a master suite and a junior suite, each with its own bathroom and walk-in closet. There is also a laundry room and two-car garage.

Martin said the beginning of the process – envisioning what the home would become – and the end – putting on those final touches – were the most exciting parts, with a lot of hard work and a few missteps in between.

He spent three weeks under the church digging the foundation, and he framed the master bathroom door before bringing in a 600-pound soaking tub. Martin also replumbed and rewired the entire original structure.

“I put a light up to shine on the bell tower; it probably took three hours to get the wire there just by feeding it, crawling in the attic and trying to get it through,” Martin said. “But it’s going to be worth it.”

There has been a lot of public interest in seeing the final product, so Cash is using it as an opportunity to raise money for a safe house for children.

She is holding a home preview party with appetizers and refreshments from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday. The address of the home is 382 N. First Ave.. Tickets are $25 and all proceeds will benefit the Children’s Guardian Home, which provides temporary housing for children who have been removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. Tickets can be purchased at Oak Valley Community Bank in Oakdale or by calling Elsie Martin at 209-606-3681 or Sonja Herndon at 209-380-2121.

Those interested in purchasing the home can contact Denise Cash at 209-765-5528.

This story was originally published December 17, 2016 at 5:17 PM with the headline "Oakdale church, sold for $1, is reborn as a custom home."