After four years sitting vacant and some natural deterioration during this period of time, a buyer was found and the building has been purchased by a new owner in early September 2009. The new owner contacted me and provided some information as to his intentions with the building. It should be welcome news to former members and friends of St. Mark's that the building did not suffer the fate of many old empty churches of being torn down. (There was another small church nearby that suffered that fate approximately fifty (?) years ago.)
-- Rod Corkum
Above (L to R): Anthony Corkum, Jim Lindner, Deborah Wentzell
(Picture provided by Anthony Corkum)
The new owner, Jim Lindner, plans to maintain the building, although it will likely look somewhat different. He has sent me the following email with his permission to post on this web site.
From: Jim Lindner
Date: September 20, 2009
Subject: News of St. Mark's Church
Hi Mr. Corkum,
I wanted to email you directly and tell you about St. Marks. As you may have noticed (or heard), St. Marks has been sold - and I am the one who purchased it. I would like to say that your web site was helpful to me before I bought it because it had important historical information that was very useful in deciding whether to go ahead and purchase the building - so I wanted to thank you and also I will be happy to provide more pictures for the site. I hope you will keep the site alive!
My background is in preservation - I am what is called an Audio Visual Archivist, and specifically I am sort of an expert in digitization. If you do a Google search on my name in Google and add the term "video" or "preservation" you will find more then you will want to know. One thing that will not show up however, is that I am passionate about what I do, and preserving cultural heritage is what I am known for. Obviously St. Mark's is very much a part of the cultural heritage of the area. I am used to working with videotapes and audiotapes - this is a very different challenge, but I am very excited about it!
St. Mark's is of course not a functioning church congregation, but it is and will always be a church building, and I respect that and will do my best to honor the history of the families who have had St. Mark's in their life for generations. The first thing that most people ask is "What are you going to do with it?" - and I suspect that you would like to know also. My answer very honestly is that I do not know. At this point I do not have an ultimate "vision" of what it will become - but I can also tell you what it will not become.
The building will not be stripped of its windows nor ripped down for the wood. The building will likely not become a restaurant or something like that. There will be changes of course, but it is important for you to know that the building was not bought to be ripped down and a new home put in it's place. The building will likely have multiple uses - as yet to be seen.
The very first thing we did was to have the entire building as it was given to us documented photographically and also measured, and I have retained Michael Napier who is an Architect from Halifax to advise me on the building. We had an entire crew out for 2 days and we measured the building because we had no plans, so now the building is being put into an architectural program so that we can view it in 3D. It has been thoroughly photographed as well so there will be a record of what it was.
We started in immediately after that process was completed. So far I have repaired the roof, evicted the pigeons, removed the rotten wood that was the handicapped ramp and rear stairs, and started a general construction project to stabilize the building. We will shortly begin stripping the paint off of the building, repairing the rotten wood, and likely will stain it with a clear stain - so the building will be different looking, but we think will look spectacular. There will eventually be an entirely new roof. The pews have been removed, but will not be sold or given away. Some of them will be reinstalled in the Nave, others will have the wood used from them in other parts of the building - the idea is to truly "recycle". We have already contacted a stained glass company in the area to give us a program to restore and stabilize the windows, and will be updating the electrical service and eventually the plumbing. We have the plaster being fixed and then will repaint the nave, likely in a color similar to the one in the Zion Church in Lunenburg. There will be new lighting, and the Nave area will be largely open to facilitate meetings or concerts or other gatherings.
I have not decided yet what to do with the Sunday School / Kitchen side of the building. Michael Napier the Architect will be proposing some ideas. So time will tell.
There is a great deal of work to be done, but it is moving along nicely and we hope to get as much work done quickly as we can before the weather turns. The building WILL change, and some people do not like any change, but we believe that this is a new chapter for the building and change is exciting also. We will not be "restoring" the church in the sense that it will of course not be functional as a congregation, but it is a wonderful building and a spiritual place and our hope is to preserve the character and respect the history of the building and the community that it is in.
Just so you know- while I come "from away" I also am here part time and have been a part time resident for many years. Many people from the community know me, and if they do not know me personally, many have come to the barn parties that I have thrown each summer for 6 years.... unfortunately this years party got canceled due to the hurricane!
In any event, I wanted to introduce myself.
Please feel free to put this email on your Web Site if you choose to.
Sincerely,
Jim Lindner
Media Matters LLC.
SAMMA Systems Inc.
450 West 31st Street 4th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10001
www.media-matters.net
Media Matters LLC. is a technical consultancy specializing in archival audio and video material. We provide advice and analysis, to media archives that apply the beneficial advances in technology to collection management.
SAMMA Systems provides tools and products that implement and optimize the advances in modern technology with established media preservation and access practices.
I will post information as it becomes available. See the next page for the first stages of renovation.
More information about Jim Lindner here.
September 19, 2010 Hear an interview by Costas Halavrezos with Jim Lindner on CBC Maritime Noon radio program that was broadcast on July 13, 2010. This was a phone-in program with Jim providing advice to callers on saving personal audio-visual materials and migrating them to digital formats. The program is 53 minutes in length. Click here! Hear another interview on CBC Maritime Noon that was broadcast on September 8, 2010. The program runs 50 minutes and the interview with Jim is after a short interview is with a representative from Nova Scotia Power. Click here! Here is a similar interview with Radio New Zealand in 2008. This runs 24 minutes. "Saving Magnetic Memories" Click here! |