The first time he saw the church, Bill Kennedy thought to himself that he liked the structure of the building, and that it had a lot of potential, and he especially like the fact it was make with BC fir, little did he know that it was part of his own families heritage.
Kennedy had seen Harvey Jacobson, the previous owner, move the church from the original lot and had asked him at the time if it was for sale, but the answer was no, and it was left at that for about 10 years. Two years ago, when Jacobson approached him and offered him the church if Kennedy was still interested. He was and bought the old church. “The Jacobson’s are a pretty neat couple,” he said, and that it was a wonderful deal.
Jacobson had bought the property where the church had been sitting and eventually moved it off the property to make way for a new home. He had planned at one point to move it to a lake and make it into a cabin, but a standard 36x24 Cape Cod style building would be very expensive and difficult to move far because the close proximity it would be to hydro lines at that height.
When Kennedy finally had the church on his property, he tried looking it up his some old history books to find out any information about it that he could but nothing turned up, until he got a phone call from his friend, Ken Lee. Kennedy was not only surprised but delighted to find out it had been build by his wife’s great- grandfather, Dave Southam.
There was even more history, the church had been turned into a school at one point and his wife’s aunt and uncle, still alive today, used to attend classes there, and remember where the stove used to be when they dropped by to have a look at the place.
Kennedy started building on his project but there were 28 holes, about the size of a coin, in the floor planks that needed to be filled. He decided to take a coin for the birth year of all of his family, helpers on the project, and the other families who had been related to the project and fit them into the holes on the floor.
The building will end up shaped with the old church in the middle facing front and square, and additions on both sides. Kennedy wanted to move into a smaller home now that their children have grown up and moved out. That was the initial plan for the project. Aware that he is aging, the design of the interior will be completely wheelchair accessible because, he said, you never know what’s going to happen. And this way if they ever decide to sell the house it will be available to everybody.
“Everything is falling together more by accident than plan,” he said, and intends to have the families over for dinner to celebrate when he’s hoping to complete the project in July.
