St. Lawrence Church
St. Lawrence Church sanctuary just prior to demolition in 2008.
St. Lawrence Congregational Church, 1979. This is a rare photograph that shows the original structure in its entirety. The Parish House still remains today. Image courtesy Portland Public Library, Portland Press Herald Still-Film Negatives Collection.
Parish House as it stands today, with corrugated metal wall where the Sanctuary part of the building once connected.
Designed by Arthur Bates Jennings, St. Lawrence Church was built in 1897 to accommodate a growing congregation on Munjoy Hill. Already beginning to deteriorate, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in hopes that would help save it. In 1986 the congregation dissolved and sold the building to private developers who were unable to find a use for the space and the heat was allowed to go out in the building, increasing the speed at which the structure deteriorated.
In 1993, the building was purchased with the intention that it would become a performing arts venue; four years later a friends group purchased the building. For ten years, serious efforts were made to stabilize both the sanctuary and parish house, but despite best efforts, the sanctuary was too significantly damaged and could not be made safe. In 2008, the sanctuary was torn down. The parish house has been restored and renovated as a performing arts venue. The adaptive reuse of the parish house has kept it safe in a neighborhood with rising property values and rapid development. At this time there are tentative plans to build a 400 seat venue on the site where the sanctuary was.