Church at 19th and Pine to become private home
Members of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, sold their 140-year-old building to a couple who plans to make it their home.
THE FIRST Church of Christ, Scientist, is a long, lovely building that sits on a picturesque stretch of Pine Street near 19th in Center City.
For decades, the redbrick church with a steep pitched roof and Gothic windows offered congregants a peaceful, quaint retreat from the hustle of city streets.
But the high cost of upkeep and dwindling attendance prompted members this summer to put it up for sale. Churchgoers celebrated their final Sunday service last month and now are renting space at the Independence Seaport Museum on Penn's Landing, as they search for a cheaper, permanent place to worship.
And the old church?
Robert Lane and his wife, Randi Zemsky, hope to soon call it home.
"We are working on plans to adapt it very sensitively to a single-family home," said Lane, a commercial real-estate lawyer and longtime Center City resident. "We're very excited to have the opportunity to help preserve this wonderful building as much as possible, rather than it going to a developer who would preserve the minimum needed."
Built in the 1870s, the church was designed by Philadelphia architect James Peacock Sims, with later alterations by architect Frank Furness. Christ Church was its first inhabitant; the First Church of Christ, Scientist, bought it in 1930.
Such history lies behind church members' decision to sell, a church leader said.
"Over the past few years, given the demands of maintaining a historic structure, First Church members have been considering moving to a more modern and better-located space," said John Minard, church treasurer and a member of its executive board of directors. Services now are at 11 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays at the Seaport Museum. The Reading Room remains open at 51 S. 4th St. Mondays through Saturdays.
Lane and Zemsky bought the old church in August for $1.61 million, according to the deed.
The couple had been hunting, for a while, for a home that would offer one-story living, privacy and outdoor space - an elusive combination in city living, Lane said. The old church on Pine Street boasts all three, including a 2,400-square-foot private garden and 4,800 square feet of floor area, which is mostly ground-level, Lane said.
Lane and Zemsky still need approvals from the city zoning board and Historical Commission. And they haven't finalized their redesign plans.
But this is familiar terrain for them: Zemsky converted a Bernadine Sisters convent on the original Fitler Estate in Villanova into a private home about 20 years ago.
"We're both sort of capable of looking at something and seeing what it could be," Lane said. "So we looked at this and immediately saw how it could be a home."
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