New Kensington natives return to hometown, make former church their home

After the last two of their combined six children graduated from college, Melissa Palumbo imagined she and her husband, Jim, would downsize their home.

He found her a castle instead.

“We walked through with a Realtor,” Melissa said. “I said, ‘Nope.’ ”

But when the price came down on the former St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in New Kensington, and Melissa got a look at how other churches have been repurposed, she had a change of mind.

“I was like, ‘OK, maybe we could do this,’ ” she said.

The Palumbos, both New Kensington natives, moved into the former church and its attached preschool on Edgewood Road just before Christmas. They had been living in Murrysville since 2005.

Jim, 65, a lifelong commercial and residential building contractor, is continuing work to transform the 26,000 square feet of the 70-year-old stone church and its 46-year-old addition. The upper level will be their home; the lower level will house his business, Encompass Building Group, which he is consolidating there from locations in New Kensington and Arnold.

Melissa, 55, owns Burtner’s Salon in Lower Burrell. The couple has been married since 2005; he has four children from a previous marriage, and she has two.

“We’ve got a lot done, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” Jim said.

Jim said he first noticed the church, and that it was for sale, in 2018 when he was building a deck on the back of a home next door that had been the church rectory.

In March 2020, they completed their purchase of the property from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

“I fell in love with the architecture of the building, the stonework,” he said. “I knew I could turn it into a home.”

Product of a schism

The St. Andrew’s congregation moved out in 2013 and established Christ Our Hope Anglican Church in Harrison in 2014. The move came after a 2008 split in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, when more than half of its churches left over theological conflicts to form the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.

St. Andrew’s was among properties returned to the Episcopal Diocese after Commonwealth Court in 2011 upheld a lower court decision that the diocese should keep the properties it owned before the split. The Anglican congregation moved out after being unable to come to an agreement to buy it.

The Episcopal Diocese tried to get a new congregation in St. Andrew’s, but those that looked at it found it too big and too expensive to maintain. The diocese rented it for use by several congregations. A day care center rented space there for offices, and other groups used it for meetings, said Rich Creehan, spokesman for the diocese.

The diocese deconsecrated the church with a final service in January 2020 while the sale to the Palumbos was in the works.

Jim said the church was listed for $549,000 when they first looked at it.

“He was really interested. I was overwhelmed,” Melissa said. “It just looked like a lot of work, and it was a lot of money. We kind of just dropped it.”

They came back eight or nine months later after the price was lowered to $300,000. Melissa was getting ideas from other churches turned into homes, and Jim already had a vision for it.

“I started getting more interested,” she said. “I always loved decorating. He loves architecture and building. I thought we could really do something with that.”

Jim said the diocese accepted their offer of $250,000 in November 2019.

He said the building’s condition wasn’t too bad, but its deterioration was on the verge of accelerating. The heat was on, but only minimal maintenance was being done.

“Overall, it was to the point where it was still good,” he said. “If it would have been left longer, it would have gone downhill quicker.”

A ‘structure of significance’

The church sits in a single-family residential area across from the former Alcoa research park. Palumbo got approval from the city in December 2019 to have both his home and business there, with the condition the business is not visible from the outside, said Tony Males, New Kensington’s engineer and zoning officer.

Some neighbors were concerned. But others who know Palumbo and his work spoke in favor of his plans, Males said.

“You need almost a unique person with his abilities to convert it from a church to a single-family home because of the expense,” Males said. “If he wouldn’t have stepped up, who knows how long that property would have just sat there. Once those buildings sit for too long, they become blighted and they’re not able to be salvaged. You hate to lose a structure of that significance.”

Like Melissa, New Kensington Mayor Tom Guzzo attended Edgewood Elementary School, which had stood on what is now an empty lot across Knollwood Road from the church. Guzzo’s children went to preschool at St. Andrew’s.

“The fact that they’re moving back and putting their home here, it’s really great,” Guzzo said. “It’s great when people have really good ideas and want to transform some of these bigger buildings into something very useful and very good for the community.”

After closing the sale, Jim got to work on major structural and mechanical issues, including repointing stone, repairing and insulating the roof, replastering walls and fixing the plumbing.

They also had to clear out things that had been left behind. Some, such as vestments, books and kitchen items, they gave away. They sold about half of the 36 pews.

A few pianos and a large amount of dishware bearing the St. Andrew’s name remain.

“It was like they turned off the lights, closed the doors and left,” Melissa said. “They left everything.”

Some elements of the church, such as the remaining pews and marble, are being repurposed, and they’ve decided to keep some original elements, such as the lights in the nave.

“We tried to keep as many things that were reusable,” Melissa said.

An unexpected move

The Palumbos listed their Murrysville home, which Jim built in 2001, for sale in October. When it sold in three days, closing in December, they had to scramble to get part of the church livable.

They built a 2,200-square-foot apartment area in the church addition, turning offices and conference rooms into a kitchen, living room and bedrooms for themselves and two daughters still living with them. Contents of their house fill the former social hall, a large space they’re still considering what to do with.

The Palumbos expect the building to start looking more like a home when landscaping work begins outside this summer. They plan to tear up the parking lot for a yard and install a swimming pool and other amenities.

Joel Le Gall, a Pittsburgh-based landscape architect since the late 1980s, is helping them with the preliminary design. Le Gall’s work over the decades has ranged from extensive private gardens to commercial landscaping work, such as the waterfall at Penn Center West that can be seen from the Parkway West.

Jim, in turn, has done some work at Le Gall’s home in Edgewood. Le Gall has not been to the site yet but has seen pictures.

“It sounds like an exciting project. He’s got all kinds of plans for the inside and the outside,” Le Gall said. “I’m looking forward to giving him some ideas so he can run with it.”

Daniel Rothschild, an architect and president of Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, said Jim is a friend he has known for four years.

“Through my experience with Jim on commercial projects, I find him in the truest sense to be a master builder. He combines craftsmanship, design and an understanding of how a project comes together in a very impressive manner,” Rothschild said.

“The reuse of an existing church as a residence is a large undertaking, as you are transforming religious spaces into residential use,” he said. “Jim has the knowledge and insight to do this in a very sensitive manner that captures the essence of the original building but making it feel like a home.”

Making it a living space

Much of the nave of the former church is currently a construction area. In part, Jim has enclosed their master bedroom, which includes some of the three dozen stained-glass windows designed and made by Hunt Stained Glass Studios in Pittsburgh.

“It’s so peaceful in there,” Melissa said. “I feel so protected. It’s such a fortress. It’s quiet, and I just love how the sunlight comes in.”

“In the morning, with the sunshine, it’s gorgeous,” Jim said.

Jim plans to make the building as energy-efficient as possible, including the installation of solar panels on the flat roof and a geothermal heating system.

Keeping in mind that they’re getting older, having the living space on one floor was intentional, and everything is designed to be accessible without looking like it.

By consolidating his business locations and Melissa being closer to her salon, the couple says the move will save them a lot of time they’ve spent traveling from Murrysville.

“I love being close to work,” she said. “Once he has his office there, he’s going to already be at work.”

The Palumbos don’t have a mortgage. Jim said they’ve put about $200,000 into the building, and he expects another $200,000 to $300,000 to be spent before it’s all said and done.

After working all day, Melissa says Jim gets home at 6 or 7 at night, works on the house until 1 or 2 in the morning and gets four hours of sleep.

He says it’s kind of like a hobby, something he does after work.

“I’m always up for a challenge. I’m not afraid of big projects,” Jim said. “We’ve done a lot of big projects for other people. I enjoy doing it for myself.”