Chapel History

The chapel was built by members of the congregation of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, April through August of 1938. The Lutherans used center-cut beams from the Preston Mill in Issaquah, hauling the beams by wagon from the mill to the chapel’s original site at 3rd Street South and 4th Avenue South in Kirkland, Washington. Volunteer labor kept the costs for the building to $2,502. The structure was dedicated September 18, 1938.

A rumor, common “knowledge” in the congregation during the fifties, was that the Lutheran builders never intended the roof of the chapel to rise at such a steep pitch. The beams had been cut too long or at the wrong angle, and the Lutherans just went ahead and continued construction with the errant beams in place. Eva Hopp, nee Eva McFarland, daughter of one of the original builders, watched her father Lloyd put the beams in place and has no recollection of anything amiss with the dimensions. In fact, the original beams still support the roof today.

The chapel has stood on three different foundations during the course of its life. The Lutherans added a full basement to their chapel after they built the original structure. Excavation commenced September 4, 1948. Lutheran volunteers raised the chapel up; climbed underneath it; dug the new basement primarily with hand shovels; then set the chapel back down on its second foundation. The basement project went the way many do-it-yourself projects tend to go. While the volunteers were working with their picks and shovels, it began to rain and the sides of the hole started to collapse. The congregation was quickly called down to the church to shore up the hardpan and save the chapel from sliding into the pit. As the story goes, they labored all Saturday night and still made it to church Sunday morning. A member of the congregation brought his tractor to the site to finish the job, and the main housing of the tractor broke when the equipment fell off the trailer in the middle of what is now State Street. Nevertheless, the chapel stood firmly on its new foundation for the next fifteen years until it moved across the street.

In the spring of 1954, St. Paul’s remodeled the chapel, adding a choir loft and refinishing the entire interior. All of the labor, with the exception of the electrical wiring, was once again donated by congregation members. The project was so popular, the congregation overpledged the cost of materials. The extra donations launched the next project, the building of a parish office in the northeast corner of the chapel.

When the Lutheran congregation outgrew its space and decided to build a new sanctuary, the Green family purchased the chapel building in 1963 and moved it to their property across the street. The Green family purchased the Sunday school attachment along with the chapel, and the school attachment was used as the Green's chauffeur's quarters. The last Lutheran service was held in the chapel in July of 1963. Viola Pagel, Warren’s mother, went to work for the Greens for a while as a housekeeper.

Chester Green had purchased the former Nettleton mansion in 1936. It was sitting empty at the time with a $9,000 mortgage. Chester had only $60 and a 1913 Model T to his name. He offered the bank his $60; the bank accepted, asking him to pay an additional $60 per year; and the mansion was his. Chester operated a funeral home there for sixty years. When the Greens purchased the Lutheran chapel twenty-seven years later, Mike Green, Chester’s son, drove a backhoe down 140^th and dug the foundation (number three) on which the chapel rested for the next forty-three years. The permitting process was simpler in those days.

The Greens knocked out the end wall, installed the floor-to-roof window wall, and added a wing reusing the original siding and windows from the 1938 church. Agnes Green, Chester’s wife, designed the chandeliers and the round stained glass window, which are part of the building today. The Greens also designed and added the pews. Over the years, at locations on two sides of the street, the chapel hosted hundreds of Sunday services, memorials, and weddings.

Meanwhile, the Lutherans had moved, and the Northlake Unitarians had purchased the Lutheran property with the newer, larger sanctuary at 308 4^th Ave. South. In 1996, the Greens sold their property, including the mansion and the chapel, to SCI Corporation, which in turn sold the property to CamWest, a local developer. In the fall of 2005, CamWest offered the chapel to the Unitarians, who then made plans to move the sixty-eight-year-old structure “back home” across the street.

The idea seemed fitting somehow to return the chapel to a new home a few feet east of its original location. Unitarians, CamWest, and local community pooled resources and supported the move. There was little precedent for relocating old chapels to new foundations, and the project became mired in 2006 building codes and red tape. Faced with prohibitive cost overruns due to bringing a 1938 building up to 2006 codes and completing street improvements required by new construction, the Unitarians were forced to abandon the project.

At the eleventh hour and only days away from demolition, prompted by media interest in the chapel’s story, a rescue effort salvaged the project. The structure was deemed eligible for landmark status; historic building codes were applied; and the graceful little chapel came home to the north side of the street on October 12^th, 2006. The chapel made one final move across the Unitarian parking lot and onto its fourth foundation in September 2007.

Special thanks to the following people and organizations for their advice and support of the chapel rescue effort:

Eric Shields - Director, Kirkland Dept. of Planning and Community Development

Chris Moore - Field Director, The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation

Julie Koler - King County Historic Preservation Program

Bruce Knowlton - Development Manager, CamWest

Michael Green - chapel owner and storyteller

Warren Pagel - Sunday schooler and storyteller

Lovina Hoertrich (formerly Wentzel) - Lutheran congregation member

Eva Hopp (nee McFarland) - Lutheran congregation member

KING 5 News

King County Journal

Northlake Unitarian Universalist Church