Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
In England, it’s standard practice to use churches and schools for residential projects. In the Midwest? Not so much. Chris Goodson of Gilded Age has led the charge, though. “It’s the story of my life!” he says with a laugh. Goodson transformed Eden Publishing into condos and gave City Hospital new life.
Despite the scale of those projects, he says his most difficult project was The Abbey on the Park (1505 Missouri), formerly Lafayette Park Presbyterian Church. The roof was still funky because of old repair jobs undertaken after the 1896 cyclone, but, he says, “when we first looked at the building, I knew it had the possibility to be residential because of the multiple floors—and there were some beautifully designed nooks and crannies.”
Goodson plotted out nine units across two floors. The trick became turning potential complicating factors into assets: Some of the condos on the second floor have 30-foot ceilings. The rosette window, which had lost its stained glass, was outfitted with clear glass and divided between two condos so it could pour sunlight into both spaces. “The unit on the west side is probably the most fascinating,” Goodson says. “It has the pipe organ and the altar. The guts of the pipe organ had disappeared, but it presented a neat opportunity to make that into a kitchen. There are two doors that you walk through into the dining room, which is where the altar was.”
Because the stained glass’ subject matter was secular (with knights, shields, and a memorial to a young congregant who died at the Battle of Fredricksburg), it lent itself to a more residential use, he says. The front lawn is on the small side and communal. “But of course you don’t really need that,” Goodson says, “because the best front yard is right out in front of you: 30 acres of Lafayette Park.”
