St. Mary's Rectory has a new purpose -- 2015
ALLEN, CROTTA
Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 12/6/2015 at 15:57:42
"The Fairfield Ledger"
Monday, November 16, 2015
Front Page and Page 6Rectory overhauled into lodging house
by Andy Hallman
Ledger news editorThe former rectory at the old location of St. Mary Catholic Church at 302 N. Third St. will soon begin a new life as a lodging house.
Buzz ALLEN and his wife Gail CROTTA own the former rectory, and for the past six months they have been putting down new carpet, painting, tiling and all manner of other things to renovate the five-bedroom home. They will show their handiwork to the community during an open house 1-4 p.m. Saturday.
ALLEN and CROTTA are also working on the former Catholic school, DeCoursey Hall, next door to the rectory. They are remodling rooms on the second floor they hope to turn into apartments, which they hope to complete by spring.
The former Catholic church on the property was demolished in August 2010. The Rev. Stephen Page, who was then the presiding priest at St. Mary's, lived in the rectory for another year until a few months before the rectory was sold to the Bonnell Building Project Inc. in October 2011, with financial help from ALLEN and CROTTA's Accelerated Learning Foundation.
The property reverted to the Accelerated Learning Foundation in April of this year, which is when ALLEN and CROTTA began the remodeling project.
"What you see is the result of six months of frantic, seven-days-a-week effort," ALLEN said. "We wanted a way to preserve its features and yet also make a place someone would want to live."
ALLEN is aware many people in the community regard the building as a holy place, and he is respectful of their desire to preserve its sanctity.
"I would be loath to turn a church into a bar," he said.
Television programs dedicated to flipping houses -- buying old ones, renovating them and selling them for a profit -- have come into vogue. ALLEN said those programs tend to focus on aesthetics such as the flooring and the walls.
"What we learned from this property is that the basics of plumbing, heating and electricity should always be considered first," he said. "In this case, they needed extensive upgrading. If you start decorating and remodeling before you take care of that stuff, you'll end up having to rip up all the stuff you made pretty."
Much donated labor went into renovating the rectory. The floors were all re-sanded. ALLEN calls his wife a "staining maven," since she did such a fine job staining the baseboards around the house. Casey Blitz picked out the paint colors, and Mark Hickenbottom and John Barber helped a great deal with plumbing and heating.
A lot of the carpeting was old, which had to be replaced during the remodel. ALLEN mentioned that a number of cats used to live in the house, and they left their mark on the carpet.
Fifteen windows were taken out and replaced with new ones. ALLEN said he tried to preserve windows whenever possible, but that he also wanted to upgrade the energy efficiency of the building.
Several of the bathrooms were completely overhauled with new tiling, cabinetry and fixtures. ALLEN mentioned that it was the first time he had ever laid tile, which he did with the help of a volunteer. The building has four full bathrooms and one half bathroom in the basement. It has six suites in all, some with shared bathrooms and some with their own bathroom.
"It is an exercise in shared living, with a shared living room and dining facilities," he said.
ALLEN said the building would make a great dormitory for boarding students or college students.
The former rectory is nearly completely remodeled. The only thing left to finish is the heating. ALLEN said he expects to be ready for tenants in mid-December. He doesn't think he'll have a problem finding them considering the high demand for housing in town.
"There's a huge glut of office space in Fairfield, and we're fortunate for that, but there is a screaming need for modest housing," he said. "If we were in the construction business, I'd be looking at building little two-bedroom houses in our community."
The former Catholic school next door is also being remodeled, although that's going a little slower since ALLEN said it is built like a "bomb shelter." Half a dozen community groups are using the building. ALLEN hopes to renovate the second-story office rooms into apartments, which should be finished in the spring.
The Accelerated Learning Foundation owns office space in the downtown, but ALLEN thinks it will be difficult for them to manage that space and the former rectory and school. ALLEN might move his office to the former rectory and occupy the front rooms since they will not be used for bedrooms.
The former church on the property was built in 1907, and the rectory was built a few decades later in the 1930s. ALLEN said the rectory was built to last, and that the structure of the building is still in good shape. He had the brick exterior tuck-pointed, but other than that, the outside did not need much fixing up.
ALF is a non-profit whose primary mission is supporting the use of instructional games to teach math and scientific reasoning. ALLEN said the foundation recently completed online versions of its games, and has hosted international online tournaments with students in Colorado, Ohio, Michigan and India.
*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.
Photo of the rectory dining room
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