VENTURA : Chapel Back in Service After Restoration

Services were held Sunday for the first time in three months inside the 65-year-old chapel at Community Presbyterian Church in Ventura, where work crews spent the summer renovating the historic structure.

The restoration included hand-cleaning hundreds of ceiling tiles, restoring the aging stained-glass windows along the south side of the church, installing a new electrical system and refinishing dozens of beams stretching above the pews.

“We finished five minutes before the wedding (Saturday), so if that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is,” said Ted Temple, a Ventura home remodeler who supervised the $500,000 restoration.

Up to 200 people--many of them volunteers from the parish--worked all summer, cleaning and polishing 60-year-old tiles that decorate the ceiling of the Poli Street chapel.

It was a painstaking and delicate task that required a variety of materials and techniques because each tile had aged differently over the years.

“It’s kind of trial-and-error work,” said Temple, who was married inside the church 26 years ago. “We used soft bristle brushes with 20 people at a time working 12 hours a day for six weeks.”

Worshipers spent the last dozen Sundays inside the Fellowship Hall, a smaller building near the main chapel.

“It was a thrill to be back in the chapel,” said Pastor Kirt Anderson, who ministered Sunday in front of a fully restored mural behind the altar.

“What we’ve done is take this sanctuary back to the original architectural intent,” Anderson said. “We’re trying to recapture the vision this church had when it was built in 1929.”

Although the church spent a sizable portion of its savings on the newly completed renovations, officials plan a series of other improvements for the chapel.

A north entryway with a garden and reception area has already been designed, but Anderson said it would be next year before the church can afford further renovations.

Bill Beckman and his family have been attending Sunday services at Community Presbyterian Church for years.

“It’s exciting to be in there,” he said of the refurbished chapel. “It kind of revitalizes it by brightening it up.”