Wisconsin congregation preserves historic Capitol Square church as ongoing act of faithfulness

[Episcopal News Service – Madison, Wisconsin] Building maintenance at Grace Episcopal Church is an ongoing challenge. That may come as no surprise for a 170-year-old church made from porous sandstone.

Repairing the sandstone is such a frequent task that the congregation keeps a reserve of limestone in its back alley that can be used as a sandstone substitute when mending Grace’s exterior walls. The congregation took on a major project in 1998 when it restored its bell tower, and since then it has invested in numerous other updates to the historic structure on Madison’s Capitol Square, from air conditioning and sprinkler systems to new lights and stairs.

This summer, it launched its latest major project: full replacement of its slate roof, an estimated $1.5 million job. Other repairs are expected in the coming years, including the replacement of Grace’s elevator, as part of a 25-year maintenance plan that keeps the congregation on top of the structure’s needs.

“We’ve been entrusted with this building,” the Rev. Jonathan Grieser, Grace’s rector, told Episcopal News Service during a recent tour of the church grounds. “All we can do is do our best now to pass it on to those who come after us.”

As The Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant churches experience long-term denominational declines in membership and worship attendance, many congregations face tough decisions about how – and whether – to continue maintaining their buildings, especially those like Grace that date to the 1800s or earlier. Some smaller or less-resourced congregations have decided to sell their aging buildings, while others have partnered with developers to renovate them as multi-use spaces.

Even congregations with the resources to continue investing in their facilities may question whether that money could be better spent directly on mission and ministry. At Grace Episcopal Church, the congregation is committed to doing both. It offers a range of outreach ministries while treating the continued preservation of its building as a spiritual calling.

“God created the universe full of beauty,” Grieser said. As he stood among the wooden pews of Grace’s historic nave, where the sunlight is colored by the church’s stained-glass windows, Grieser added that this man-made structure was also created with a purpose; to help connect its people and its community with the divine.

“While we can worship God in all kinds of places and contexts, there’s something about being in a space that is set aside for worship and that engages all of our senses in worship,” he said.

This space at 116 W. Washington Ave. has been set aside for Christian worship nearly as long as Wisconsin has been a state. The congregation was established in 1839, nine years before statehood, and construction on its church began in 1855 and was completed in 1858. The church now exists literally in the shadow of Wisconsin’s State Capitol. The white domed building, visible from miles away, was completed in 1917 and towers over the rest of Madison’s central neighborhood on a hill between two lakes.

Grace, listed on the national and state registers of historic places, is the oldest building on Capital Square, among the neighborhood’s many office buildings, government agencies, hotels, boutique shops and restaurants.

Designed in a Gothic style by Milwaukee architect James Douglas, its exterior was made of sandstone from a local quarry that later closed. About every 10 years, the congregation completes a thorough round of exterior repairs, including tuckpointing and filling in damaged stone with the replacement limestone.

“It requires a lot of upkeep,” said Fred Groth, a parishioner who works for the structural engineering firm GRAEF and helped the congregation develop a long-term maintenance plan. That plan, overseen by a volunteer building and grounds committee, includes every imaginable repair, such as boiler maintenance, electrical upgrades, new carpeting, fresh coats of paint, even changing the light bulbs.

“The minor repairs are worth it,” Groth told ENS in a phone interview. “If you take care of a church like this and do the proper maintenance, your cost for repairs is a fraction” of the cost of catching up on deferred maintenance, he said.

Grace has other advantages. Though not a huge congregation, its average Sunday attendance of about 130 is larger than most Episcopal congregations, compared to the churchwide median of 39. It also is arguably the most prominent of Madison’s four Episcopal churches, by virtue of its location on Capitol Square, a frequent hub of urban activity.

The congregation collects nearly $500,000 a year in plate and pledge revenue and is further supported by an internal endowment. It also receives assistance from the Grace Foundation, an affiliated nonprofit that helps fund long-term maintenance projects.

Grace Episcopal Church sometimes launches fundraising campaigns to pay for larger maintenance projects, as it did for a series of renovations in 2015. Then in 2021, it began developing a plan to replace its roof.

The old slate roof, installed in 1980, was expected to last 100 years, but it already had begun to deteriorate, possibly because of poor materials and installation shortcuts. Every few years, shingles would fall and need to be replaced, Grieser said. The congregation decided to replace the entire roof properly, so this time it would last.

Grace is in the middle of a $750,000 capital campaign to cover half the cost, and while continuing to raise money, the congregation committed to starting the repairs this summer. On a Friday morning in late May, a 6-foot security fence blocked access to the exterior sides of the nave. On the side facing the State Capitol, a crew was finishing the installation of scaffolding up to the roofline, where a supervisor shouted instructions down to a worker below.

Before starting the project, the congregation commissioned an inspection, which found that the structural supports for the roof are still sound, Grieser said. He partly attributes the church’s good condition to the congregation’s regular roof maintenance. The best way to minimize the risk of costly church repairs, he noted, is to keep water out.

The roof project is due to be completed by December. The congregation can still worship in the nave during construction, Grieser said. On the inside, the only noticeable change is that the stained-glass windows are covered to protect them from damage.

In maintaining an old church, it also helps to have a rector versed in the vocabulary of construction. Grieser grew up helping his father, who worked as a contractor. Before attending seminary, he became very familiar with installing slate tiles, he said.

Now his congregation is part of a city filled with commercial construction sites, a sign of Madison’s vitality, yet he sees historic preservation as a kind of faithfulness and Grace’s endurance as “a symbol of something greater” in this changing city.

“Madison is growing and changing,” Grieser said. “So much of our space now is privatized, corporatized, remarkably similar. To have a space, a building on the Capitol Square, that directs us away from ourselves and our personal concerns and directs us to the God who created us all and sustains us, I think, is a worthwhile thing and important to preserve.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.