Agony and Ecstasy: Eastern Repurposed Churches Part Three
The last province in our cross -Canada family vacation/church repurposing tour was Prince Edward Island. I had intended all along to visit the Indian River Festival resident in St. Mary’s Church designed by William Critchlow Harris. It’s been on my wish list to visit for a long time so I was super excited when we made it there on day two in PEI.
The current St. Mary’s church is the second at that site (the first destroyed by fire) and was erected in 1902. Following some tough economic times, the congregation began running concerts to fundraise for the buildings’ upkeep. It was so successful that these concerts became the separately incorporated Indian River Festivalin 1996.
In 2009 following the decommission of the church by the Catholic Diocese, the festival purchased the building and now runs a highly successful festival annually and events throughout the year.
The building was as stunning in person as it had appeared in photographs. Rising up out of the landscape of fields surrounding it like some great, shining beacon, you can’t help but be drawn to it. The addition of the modern glass structure that serves as a lobby (although not fully attached) doesn’t detract from the historic building at all and the interior is beautifully maintained.
I’m thrilled to see this acoustically perfect church finding a second life as a gathering place for community at large!
The very next day, however, my heart nearly broke on seeing the Long River Presbyterian Church (where L.M. Montgomery attended as a child) repurposed into a modern minimalist burger joint. I have seen a lot of repurposed and co-purposed (faith community still resident with others) faith buildings in the past five years. I’ve even been to many sensitively repurposed church-restaurants including Silversmithin Niagara on the Lake and recently Revival Housein Stratford. At each of these I felt like the spirit of communal gathering and presence was still there and that the architectural elements were appropriately accented and incorporated.
Unfortunately, this was not the case with the former Long River Presbyterian church. Locals (and the internet) tell me that the church was moved to Cavendish to preserve it and have it act as the “church” at the Avonlea site, a tourist, shopping, quasi historic interpretation area in cavendish. Then from 2008 on the church served as a music venue, before recently being converted into a fast food restaurant. While I’m sure the burgers are great, this repurposing just left me cold.