TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. — Built-in the 1920s, the former church on the corner of Read and Canal Street has been a beacon of hope for the religious faithful.
The church welcomed parishioners for nearly a hundred years; now, the seller is looking towards a different future.
"The hope is that one family buys this home," said Kelly Ackley, Global Sales Advisor with Premier Sotheby's International Realty.
Ackley is the listing agent for 160 Read Street and has her own personal connection to the property.
"I lived in this area for many years and raised my family here for 25 years," Ackley said. "My kids would come, and they thought it was the haunted house. And they were sure there was someone in the windows."
According to Ackley, the former church underwent extensive renovations.
"The owner reinforced the entire home with steel beams. The walls are insulated, and the roof is insulated. It is a 50-year tile roof made of metal and is already pre-wired for solar. He just brought it back. But on the outside, it still looks very much the same. Inside, it is just luxury from head to toe but extremely comfortable, but it feels homey."
Multiple congregations have used the church since the 1920s. Tracking down former parishioners wasn't easy, but we were able to find a former pastor of a church that held services there from 1982 to 1986.
The building is now listed for sale with an asking price of $5,995,000.
"Do you think it will go for that?" Paluska asked Ackley.
"I think it will go close to it," Ackley said.
"We started a church in Tarpon Springs called the Harbor Baptist Temple," Paul Tipton said.
"Does it make you feel good that someone might call that a home after it was a sanctuary?" Paluska asked.
"Yeah, it's okay. You know, it was a bad location for a church only because of the lack of parking and other things that we had there. As far as the building itself goes, it was a blessing. It served its purpose for us. And if they can continue to serve some sort of purpose, that's fine and excites me."
"What do you think of a rat trap being turned into a $6 million home?" Jerry Cook, a former parishioner who helped found Harbor Baptist Temple, asked Paluska in bewilderment.
"We made it into a nice-looking place, and it felt like you were at a camp meeting or revival meeting. Nobody would ever think they would have done what they did to that place. We watched it very closely as they gutted everything and so forth. And we just kept an eye on it. The upstairs was really, really gone, probably unsafe. Yeah, that's how bad it was. But we made it to work."
The front steps leading into the sanctuary were a problem in the old days.
"Older people were scared going up and down. So we brought a chair outside. We said, 'Okay, we're going to put you in his chair and carry you up.' It seemed like a forever flight of stairs going up there. And she was not a small lady. It scared the life out of some of the older people. But they wanted to be in that church. And that's the reason they would let us do that. Because I mean, all we'd have to do is drop them, and they would go tumbling down those long stairs.
"You never dropped anyone?" Paluska asked with a smile.
"No, never dropped anyone," Cook said.
"I'll be honest with you. It could have been condemned. It really could have been. It was bad. And we made something good out of it," Cook said. "What they did there will stand for a long time."