Episcopal Church, Preservationists Reach Accord on Saving Building : Architecture: Diocesan officials agree to move the structure rather than demolish it. They aren’t happy about the cost.

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and preservationists have reached an uneasy compromise that will save the oldest Episcopal church in the city.

As a result, the church will be moved across the street from its present one-acre site.

Church officials say the $500,000 cost of moving the building should be used for more worthy causes, but preservationists say the church has historic value as an example of the craftsman style of architecture.

Episcopal officials decided last year to demolish St. Athanasius and St. Paul, a small wooden sanctuary overlooking Echo Park Lake, so the site could be used as part of a new religious center that will include a diocesan headquarters and a new church.

But members of the Los Angeles Conservancy vowed to save the 88-year-old edifice.

The diocese, which oversees 151 churches in five counties, will provide the $8.4 million for the center and new church. Church officials hope that fund raisers will provide much of the $500,000 cost of moving the present brown-shingled structure.

“The building is really in bad shape,” said the Rev. J. Jon Bruno, the church’s pastor, bouncing on the floor to demonstrate that termites had weakened the sloping foundation. “It was hard, thinking about demolishing it. But the reality is that half a million dollars is a lot of money for what is essentially a poor church.”

St. Athanasius and St. Paul is a bilingual congregation of 297 members that serves a low-income neighborhood. The church has an annual budget of about $100,000, 40% of which is used for such social services as providing groceries for 400 to 600 families a month, drug, alcohol and AIDS counseling, and gang intervention, Bruno said.

“I really care about this community,” said Bruno, 44, who was born in Echo Park. “I don’t want the services we provide to be inhibited because we are sinking money into moving this building. If preservation means that one family goes hungry, or one kid ends up in a gang, then it’s not worth it to me.”

The preservationists aren’t totally happy, either.

Jay Rounds, executive director of the nonprofit Los Angeles Conservancy, said that moving the sanctuary means “sacrificing the high value we put on preserving buildings in their original context.”

“The church is a rare representative of the craftsman style,” he said about the rudimentary architectural design that features simple lines and exposed beams. “This is probably one of the only (non-residential) examples left in the city, and clearly it is the premiere example.”

After the church is moved, it will be used for meetings and to house denomination archives, rather than for religious services.

It was founded as St. Athanasius in 1865 by the Rev. Elais Birdsall, the first Episcopal missionary to come West after the Civil War. He originally installed his congregation in a brick building at Temple and New High streets.

At the turn of the century, the congregation was forced to move and decided to construct a new building. Some members of the congregation, upset over the difficulty of pronouncing St. Athanasius (Ath-a-nay-shes), changed the name to St. Paul. Other members, angry over the switch, left the church, formed a new congregation and kept the old name. The congregations were separate for about 80 years before reuniting in 1986. Thus the double name St. Athanasius and St. Paul.

Although conservancy researchers were unable to find a building permit for the original St. Athanasius, diocese records show that it probably was completed in 1902 and was on Custer Avenue near City Hall.

In 1920, when the building was moved to its current site at 840 Echo Park Blvd., it had clapboard siding. The main entrance was on the north side of the building, and it had no porch. It was slightly smaller than it is now and contained only a few stained-glass windows.

Today, the entrance is on the west side of the building, facing Echo Park Lake, and almost all of the windows are made from stained glass, including some that were installed in the 1950s and 1960s.

“It’s been moved and changed so many times that there is some question about the quality of the site,” said Thomas Holland, project director for the new diocesan center. “It’s not the same building it was at the turn of the century.”

But preservationists say remodeling doesn’t deter from its importance. “The White House has been remodeled many times, and I don’t think anyone would question its historical significance,” Rounds said. “It’s not like an aluminum-siding salesman made changes to it last week.”

Moreover, Rounds said, noted Los Angeles architect Arthur B. Benton is believed to be responsible for remodeling the church after it was moved to its current site. Benton, a member of the parish, was one of the architects for the Mission Inn in Riverside and designed the Los Angeles YMCA Residents’ Building and the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium.

City Councilwoman Gloria Molina stepped in to help orchestrate the compromise. “We tried to see what we could do to preserve the building and still meet the needs of the diocese,” said Steve Jimenez, a legislative aide to Molina, whose district includes the church and who sits on the council committee that hears cases recommended for historical monument status. “We wanted to balance both issues.”

Diocesan officials, currently based in an office downtown, picked Echo Park for their new home because they want to stay in the heart of the city, and particularly in a neighborhood where one of its churches already has a considerable presence.

The new center will include administrative buildings, an assembly hall, conference rooms, a bookstore, overnight accommodations for retreats, two parking lots and the new St. Athanasius and St. Paul.

In the end, said Bishop Frederick Borsch, the compromise with the conservancy was the only way to make the new center a reality. “It would have been a difficult fight that we may or may not have won,” said Borsch, the leader of the 80,000-member diocese. “We have never had a center, and we were quite excited about this project. We’d like to get on with it.”

Added Holland: “We started from the position that we wanted to demolish the church. But after the other parties made their position known, it seemed better to make the compromise. I guess you could say we’re making the best of it.”