Wanna Own A Church?

Don't like religion? Want to do your part in helping the real estate market rebound? Have a large family or, perhaps, would like to start you own cult? Well pull up a chair friend, have I got a deal for you.

www.brownstoner.com...

www.homedit.com...

You can find these renovations here in America, London, Australia and other parts of the world too I would imagine. I just thought I'd post this because I think it's very a very ingenious thing to do.

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

As always when I start a thread, I have to hit and run. I'll pop back in in a few days to see if I drew a crowd.

On one of the episodes of American Pickers. A musician owned an old church that he renovated into a nice home. I wouldn't mind living in a old church. Sounds it would be a nice place to restore and have whatever meets your needs.

i would knock them all down as they are built on pagan sites and have been stolen from a religion that they are only mirroring .

they do not belong there those sites were for the people not a special people my 2 cents

Think of all the taxes you could avoid if you started your own church!

Wow some of those renovations are amazing. Hard to heat I imagine.

But modern churches have converted warehouses etc into churches, so a conversion of a building means nothing. A church building is just a building, if the people within it are dead,lifeless and offer the community nothing and are not growing then that's why they close and sell, because they cannot afford the upkeep on the grand old stone buildings.

So that there are old churches as homes is just not an issue at all.

reply to post by Taupin Desciple


I would love to live in a converted church. I would replace the altar with amps, and record music in the main section of the building, and use the smaller spaces for regular things like cooking, sleeping storage and living.

I would probably leave at least one large cross in the building. I am a believer, so it would be a bit crap of me to totally maul the gaff.

reply to post by Taupin Desciple


Sounds very interesting since my last name is Brown.A renovated church eh.....is it mason less?

If you are sensitive to things that some would consider "heresy", please skip this post.....

....some may know, I run bars and restaurants for a living (and hotels). At one point I had looked into buying an old church. It was a historic building, built in 1922, and had been the first baptist church in the area. My concept: a church themed bar.

The cocktail's would wear a nuns habit, cut shorter so as to be racy. Shots would be served in the smallish plastic cups that you did communion with. Wines served in golden chalices, etc. The bartenders would wear monk robes or priest robes.

Obviously, the concept never got off the ground. LOL...the community at the time didn't support it.

But the current place we have uses a similar theme idea in that it took a historic business in that location and utilized it in the gimmick of the bar that we opened there.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Yeah, you do have to keep the rest of population in mind. I do like the nun idea though. Saucy.

reply to post by Phoenix267


Well, it seems I found at least one other person with particular tastes. To me, they are old buildings with architecture planned by someone with skill, maintained by someone who cared and sheltered people through the years who knew how to gather with others of like mind and purpose. Those buildings were not the only ones that were grand with their appointments. Particular religions notwithstanding.

I just think that the buildings that were re-done in a modern style got shortchanged. The outside is still reminiscent of the 17 and 1800’s, built out of stone, a graveyard in some front yards with ivy growing over the windows, but when you step inside, some of them greet you with white, sharp angles. The inside doesn’t belong with the out, which indicates a designer who didn’t know how to blend the old with the new. Or just didn’t want to. Some people like that juxtaposition though. Without a need, you are not going to have people who can meet it.

The buildings where someone took the old world charm that occupied the interior, cleaned it up and made it at glow again………shows someone who knew how to take what was old and make it new again. They stayed true with it all and brought life back to its particular purpose.

That’s why it did me good to stumble onto those pictures and stories. Not only are people letting those old world shadows linger, but they are revitalizing buildings that need them, they are putting buildings up for sale in a market that needs a shot of ingenuity to bring it back to life, and, from what I’ve seen, the asking prices aren’t ridiculously high for what is being sold and where. From the business angle, they’re not going to raise the comps to where the rest of the area suffers. From the personal angle, they’re unique.