Divine Beauty

The stained glass windows at Baptist Temple Church in Homewood have no Bible scenes, but they reveal messages through their colors: purple for the passion of Christ, yellow for hope and rebirth, and green for growth.

“The stained glass must have been very important to whoever designed this building because no matter where you were sitting, … you would be able to see and experience a window,” said Jane Nicholson, chair of the trustee ministry. “It wasn’t just one or two [windows]. They really thought that this was part of the experience, even if it was simply done.”

Last year, the congregation renovated one of its two rose windows. The limpid greens of the rehabilitated rose window contrast with the dull purples and cloudy blues of the unrestored one. Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has granted $10,000 toward the second window’s repair.

“We want this church to stand for another hundred years and beyond,” Nicholson said.

Homewood’s population and economic base have declined steeply since the 1970s. That’s not lost on those at the church, who think investing in the building is an investment in the community.

“We believe that this church and other churches send a message of hope,” Nicholson said. “You feel safer and better if you’re in a building that’s well-kept, maintained and beautiful.”

Baptist Temple Church started in 1921, with the worshippers at first not having a building at all. The 23 founding members met in a private home or in Smith Hall on the south side of Centre Avenue near the intersection with North Highland Avenue in what is now Shadyside.

In 1922, the church bought some lots at Collier Street and Frankstown Avenue in Homewood and set up a cloth tent for services. After fire destroyed the tent, the congregation “moved to a structure of galvanized metal in March 1923,” according to a church history.

Finally, in November 1945, the congregation bought and moved into the sturdy yellow brick church with its many stained glass windows at 7241 Race St.

“That’s why we say we came from a tent to a temple,” Nicholson said.

Once moved in, congregants quickly paid off the mortgage and began offering a junior church for children, missionary work, a choir and other spiritual services they had not been able to start without their own building. Membership grew.

Originally, Sunday services were held at 7:30 and 10:45 a.m. and 7 p.m. to accommodate the many congregants who worked different shifts in Pittsburgh’s mills. The congregation has about 300 members now and offers two Sunday morning services at 8 and 10:45 a.m.

An arc of lime-green leaves on an amber field stretches over a stained glass scene of Jesus knocking at an arched door. Tiny, almost imperceptible chinks and chips mar his robe and the edges of the tableau.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s in horrible shape, but we want to catch it before it gets real bad,” said Phelps, the property manager.

Eastminster, at 250 N. Highland Ave., East Liberty, has many stained glass windows. Its high-ceilinged sanctuary soars with arched windows, square windows, gothic windows and medallions in a breathtaking profusion of jewel tones.

“Beauty opens up the soul and brings hope,” Phelps said.

The church has been repairing one window a year for roughly 15 years through Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s Historic Religious Properties Grant Program. Each window costs up to $35,000 to restore.

This year, the program granted the church $9,880 to renovate “Jesus Knocking at the Door,” one of a series of windows from the former Third United Presbyterian Church. The balance of the restoration cost comes from church funds.

The windows “were in pretty precarious condition when they were moved to Eastminster,” said Chuck Watkins, a third-generation member and possibly the congregation’s oldest living member. “The frames started to rot out. So we’re replacing the frames and repairing the windows.”

Eastminster was founded in 1856, Watkins said. Before the post-World War II urban renewal project that disrupted East Liberty’s traffic patterns, the church was “for the upper class of Highland Park.... You don’t build a building like that without a lot of money behind you. It was built by wealthy people.”

After the change in East Liberty’s traffic pattern, the neighborhood and the church went into decline. Now, however, membership has stabilized “and more importantly, it has become racially equal,” Watkins said, with about half the congregation being Black and half white.

The current building has several renovation projects in process, including the cleaning and repair of its woodwork. Phelps also keeps his eye on the church’s more than 20 roofs and its four boilers, two of which run on steam.

Eastminster — then known as Sixth United Presbyterian Church — merged with Third United Presbyterian, formerly of Shady Avenue and Northumberland Street, Squirrel Hill, on Jan. 1, 1962. In 1963, congregants changed the church’s name to Eastminster to avoid confusion with Sixth Presbyterian Church at the corner of Shady and Forbes avenues, Squirrel Hill.

Several community programs got their start inside the church, including the East End Cooperative Ministry, whose office is now at 6140 Station St., East Liberty.

The church still hosts other community programs such as Tree of Hope, which provides services for children affected by gun violence; the Judah Project for teaching music; and a publicly available fitness center inside the building.

The congregation has about 250 members and a 10:30 a.m. service on Sundays.

April 1, 2024: This story has been modified to clarify that the window being repaired as well as other windows on the same hallway originally came from the Third United Presbyterian Church.

Farmers founded Mount Vernon Community Presbyterian Church, which sits atop a hill in Elizabeth Township. The breeze rustles through the trees as the vista spills from the back of the church over its cemetery to the Youghiogheny River.

Mount Vernon’s wooden sanctuary boasts few ornaments, but the most beautiful are seven stained glass medallions, skillfully embedded into each window.

“Whoever did this originally was a real craftsman,” said Theresa Cochenour, chair of the church corporation and the congregation’s unofficial historian.

The church intends to use its $10,000 grant from Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation to remove the medallions and hang them as sun catchers in front of new double-paned windows in addition to replacing the chapel windows for a total cost of about $35,000. Williams Stained Glass Studio in Castle Shannon will be handling the stained glass work. This is the first time the church has renovated its medallions.

“I think this is a good blend of the old and the new,” Cochenour said.

After Mount Vernon’s minister retired in 2020 and the congregation hired an interim minister, the church began a “great cleanup” in August 2021, sorting through the accumulated artifacts of 157 years of history.

In addition, the congregation has been renovating its building — repapering and repainting rooms, adding new lights and planning to bring its kitchen up to code and replace its asbestos floors.

One room holds the original pulpit and Communion table. A hallway display case features the original church school bell, a cross made from pieces of an original stained glass window and a 1912 photo of the congregation, among other historic pieces.

The church traces its origins back as far as 1866, when 118 people signed a petition to form a new church near Mount Vernon because the existing ones were too far away to attend regularly, according to church history.

Congregants built a wooden house of worship in 1867 on the present parcel. In the 1950s, the building was moved up the hill on the same plot of land, and a basement was added for a Sunday school and a recreation room. The church now uses the basement for a Scout room, meetings, a preschool and a kitchen.

In 1958, the congregation expanded the building to add space for the choir, pastor’s room, parlor and chapel. And in 1972, they added the fellowship hall and a new sanctuary.

The congregation now has 231 members and one 10 a.m. service on Sunday.

“We’re really trying to restore the church,” Cochenour said. “We want to entice people to come in.”

Clean blue, amber and green glass shards from a Baptist Temple Church rose window lay atop a chalk drawing at Williams Stained Glass Studio in Castle Shannon. Lead segments glint fresh and silvery between some of the pieces.

In a nearby box lean other frames from the same window, but on these, decades-old dirt muddies the colors and the occasional mist of old paint is spattered on them.

“Some of [the frames from the rose window] we had to tape together” to remove them from the church, said studio owner Michael Williams, 57, of Pleasant Hills. “The lead just kind of disintegrated.”

Baptist Temple in Homewood and Mount Vernon Community Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth Township chose Williams’ business to refurbish their stained glass windows this year, part of a Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation program. The foundation also awarded money to Eastminster Presbyterian Church for the same purpose.

Pittsburgh still boasts many stained glass repair shops, including not only Williams’ but also the more-than a century-old Pittsburgh Stained Glass Studios in the West End.

Renovating stained glass takes care and a steady hand. “The two qualities that are most important here are patience and perseverance, and that you can’t teach,” said owner Kirk Weaver.

Workers must record the window’s original appearance by making a rubbing with crayon, chalk or pieces of carbon paper, the latter being hard to find now that computers and printers are used for making copies.

The old lead is removed and each glass piece cleaned. Sometimes the craftsperson must number each piece to keep track of where it goes. Broken pieces must be repaired or replaced.

Workers reassemble the glass on top of the rubbing, then bend new pieces of soft lead around each piece of glass. After that comes soldering. Each joint of lead must be soldered, front and back.

New lead looks like silver — a less pleasing appearance than dark lead. The windows also need to be sealed. So workers then rub “cement” — a black tar-like putty — on the windows.

Powdery “whiting” is dusted over the panel and the window is left to stand for a day. After that, a worker takes a stick or sharpened dowel rod and draws around each glass shape to pack the cement into each joint. The worker can then brush and vacuum off the extraneous putty.

Next, the window is rubbed with sawdust, which then gets removed. And finally, workers polish the window to remove any residual putty, burnish the lead and shine the glass.

When the process is completed, the window must be turned over and the same work done on the reverse side.

Larger windows may have additional reinforcing put on before they are installed.

Williams’ father started his business in 1983. He had been a draftsman who did work for local steel companies, but as the industry imploded in the late 1970s and early ’80s, he decided to pursue his and his wife’s hobby — stained glass renovation — full time.

Williams began working at 15 in his father’s shop. “All this stuff we’re doing now I learned on the job,” he said. “I loved it. I worked all the time. I liked to work with my hands.”

His five employees include two of his own sons, one of whom, age 20, wants to continue working in the studio while the other is headed to college and likely a white-collar profession.

“I don’t blame him,” Williams said. “It’s hard doing a small business.”

Weaver, 65, of Mt. Lebanon, also inherited his business, which was founded under a different name in 1903. His grandfather started as a bookkeeper with the business in 1928 and became an administrator. His father also worked in the shop as a salesman, administrator and bookkeeper. Weaver left graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh in 1983 to enter the business. In 2013, he took over.

Medieval glass windows adorn his studio, which dates to 1914, although parts of the building are older.

“There’s never a lack of money for God,” Weaver said, describing older attitudes toward art in houses of worship.

He has kept all kinds of original items from the business, including original furniture and drawers full of a Depression-era subscription service that gave craftsmen business leads.

There’s even a showroom window that functions like a pocket door except, instead of having a door pull out from the sides of the window, this one has stained glass patterns that a salesperson could pull out to show a customer. Along the edge of each pattern’s frame is its original price. The most expensive one cost $12.

He also has samples of every piece of glass used by the business, which can be matched or closely matched today.

“It’s nice to work on something a hundred years old and give it that next hundred years,” Weaver said.

April 2, 2024: This story has corrected the name of Pittsburgh Stained Glass Studios.

Laura Malt Schneiderman: lschneiderman@post-gazette.com