Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: October 1987 Volume 25 Number 4, Pages 149–153

First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berwyn

Anne W. Hummer

Page 149

[In the October 1956 issue of the Quarterly of the Tredyffrin Easttown History Club (Vol. IX, No. 2) is a description of the formative years of this church. This paper is an update of that report, though it will also include some of the information about the beginnings of the church.]

In December 1942, thirty-eight Christian Scientists met to consider holding Christian Science services on the western Main Line. The majority of them at that time regularly attended the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Ardmore, while others were members of other Christian Science churches in the area. Those assembled agreed to proceed, and in January 1943, obtained a lease from the Saturday Club on West Wayne Avenue in Wayne to hold church services and Sunday School on Sunday mornings as well as services on Wednesday evenings. The first service at the Saturday Club was held on January 17, 1943.

In March 1943 the group was recognized by The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, as a Christian Science Society. (A Christian Science Society is a small group which has not met all the requirements to become a church.) By 1944 these requirements had been fulfilled, and the congregation applied for articles of incorporation from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a process which was finally completed in 1946. At that time the organization became known as First Church of Christ, Scientist, Wayne, Pennsylvania.

Page 150

The new church was very eager to have a home of its own, and in February 1947, settlement was made on a large lot at the corner of Louella Avenue and Upland Way in Wayne, across from the Windermere Court Apartments and one block from the Radnor School complex. Ten per cent of the collection each Sunday thereafter was deposited into a building fund,, and everybody looked forward to the time when it would be feasible to begin active planning for a new church building.

In April 1953, however, the Building Committee became aware that the old Chapel building of the Baptist Church in the Great Valley, located on Cassatt Avenue in Berwyn, was for sale. In May it was decided to purchase this building, and to sell the building lot in Wayne.

After the purchase, there was considerable interior renovation work to be done. In July the decision was made to go ahead with it, and shortly afterwards construction began. The baptismal tank was removed, and a wooden screen was erected behind the Readers' platform. A stairway in back of the screen allowed the Readers to come up from the Readers' room downstairs and pass through two curtained openings onto the platform. The screen was initially natural wood, stained to match the other woodwork in the auditorium, and the arches in the panels were designed to reflect those in the ceiling and above the rolling doors that were along the left wall of the auditorium. The two doorways and the brass railings surrounding the platform were hung with velvet draperies of a deep rose color.

Exterior changes to the building were minimal. The railing on the front porch was replaced, although the posts are still original. The wood trim at the top of each section of the new railing also reflects the arches on the wood screen in the auditorium. (The original porch railing had semi-circular cut-outs which matched those still visible on the railing at the top of the bell tower.) In the back, a set of cement steps was constructed to give access to a door in the rear of the building on the auditorium floor. (It is probable that a set of wooden outside stairs had earlier been removed from that door.)

At the time of the purchase, the building was surrounded by lawn. Before we occupied the building we constructed a driveway on the north side of the church, and a small asphalt parking lot was laid out at the rear of the property. As our membership has increased, it has been necessary to enlarge the parking lot, and finally to add another exit driveway to the south of the building.

The first service in the new building was held on October 3, 1953. In the meantime, steps were also taken to change the name of the church to First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berwyn, Pennsylvania. With the new location also came a desire to move the Reading Room to Berwyn also. A suitable ground floor location was found on Lancaster Avenue, across from the railroad station and just west of the Berwyn Hardware store. It was opened to the public in January 1954. (The Reading Room was later moved to the newly-constructed Berwyn Shopping Center, and it is now located a block west of the shopping center, at 582 Lancaster Avenue.)

Page 151

Christian Science churches are not dedicated until they are free of debt. This church building was dedicated almost exactly three years to the day of our first service in it, on October 7, 1956.

As membership increased in the 1960s, the building, and the Sunday School room in particular, became more and more crowded. At one point the house next door to the north, at the corner of Conestoga Road and Cassatt Avenue, came onto the market. After inspection to determine whether it would be suitable for use as a Sunday School building, the membership decided that it would require too extensive renovation for our purposes.

After much discussion, it was finally decided to plan to build a larger church in a new location. A two-acre lot on the other side of Berwyn, at the corner of Church and Sugartown roads, was purchased, and in 1969 preliminary discussions concerning a new church edifice at the new location began.

Just at that time, the Bair estate on Conestoga Road was purchased by a developer, who broke it up into building lots for sale. So we naturally considered whether to build the new church at the corner of Bair and Conestoga roads, nearer to our present location, but decided instead to continue with our plans for the property on Sugartown Road. In April 1971 an architect was commissioned to develop site plans for this location, and to prepare some preliminary drawings.

At the corporate business meeting in May 1971 the membership agreed that it was necessary to refurbish the present church building even while we planned for relocation. A redecorating committee, chaired by Anna Roberts Brosius and also including John Schimmel, a decorator and our present treasurer, proposed a plan of renovation which was promptly undertaken. The church auditorium today has been maintained almost exactly as it looked when this renovation was completed in 1971. Doors were added at that time to the two Readers' entrances at the front, and a solid railing replaced the curtains around the platform. The rolling overhead divider doors at the left side of the auditorium were removed, opening up arches above them into the hallway. The woodwork was repainted in several tones of cream and beige, and new pale green carpeting was installed throughout the auditorium and hallways.

Not long after this, the organ showed signs of needing major overhaul. After considering replacing it with a new electronic instrument, it was decided, instead, to restore this fine old pipe organ. The restoration work was dene for us by Jacob Gerger.

The membership had agreed upon 1975 as the target date to break ground for the new church building on Sugartown Road. The 1970s, however, were a time of rapidly spiraling prices. By 1975 the original cost estimates for the new building were badly out of date as building costs had risen enormously, making construction at that time for us simply economically not feasible.

Page 152

In 1976, to celebrate the bicentennial of the United States, every church was asked to ring its bell at two o'clock in the afternoon on July 4th. Our bell, cast in 1883 and purchased from a Norristown congregation about the time the Chapel was constructed, had not been rung in many years, and the neighbors seemed delighted to hear it. We decided to have the bell's supporting framework refurbished, and have been ringing the bell before the morning service every Sunday since then.

The commitment to continue to ring the bell each Sunday was actually indicative of the thinking of the membership, a new mood which culminated in a change of plans and in our most recent project. For some time, we had been considering whether leaving this lovely and historic building was truly the best way to obtain the space we needed. We began to work prayerfully to seek the right solution, whatever it might be. "

Late in 1976 we engaged the architect Bryan Loving to survey the Cassatt Avenue building to see if it could be redeveloped to neet our needs. His plans were exciting -- and our building fund, together with the sale of the lot on Sugartown Road, was sufficient to meet the initial costs. We broke ground on the new project in June 1977.

During the construction work, the Sunday School met in our Reading Room in the Berwyn Shopping Center, as the entire ground floor was gutted, rebuilt, air-conditioned, and redecorated. In addition to the large Sunday School room, it now includes a separate classroom for the youngest students, a Board room, and an office for the Sunday School superintendent.

A two-story extension was also constructed at the rear of the building to provide space for a child care room downstairs and rooms for the Readers and soloist on the auditorium floor. The exterior of the addition was designed to reflect the Victorian architecture of the original building. The pointed windows in the Readers' rooms reflect those in the bell tower, the porch railing repeats the arches in the screen in back of the platform and in the front porch railing, and the ornamental woodwork above the porch matches that in the gables at the front and rear of the church.

By 1980 the project was completely paid for and the Church was once again debt-free. The rededication service was held on Sunday, November 13th.

Shortly after the renovation was completed, neighbor children playing ball in the rear parking lot damaged some of the panes in the stained glass window behind the platform in the auditorium. We called in people from the Willett Studios in Chestnut Hill, who not only did the necessary repair work, but also fitted the windows with protective coverings of Lexan plastic to prevent similar damage to them. (It also serves as a storm window.) It may be interesting to note that we have been told that only the large window over the platform is original, and that the smaller, but attractive, geometric side windows were put in after the Chapel was extensively damaged by fire in the mid-1890s.

Page 153

The old Chapel building has served as well during the almost thirty-five years that it has been the home of First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Berwyn. We have made changes as our congregation has grown, but we have tried to maintain the integrity of the structure. It is our hope that eventually one of our members will undertake a project to seek historic registration for this fine example of Victorian church architecture.