For sale: 19th century Black church turned into modern Wrightsville home, preserving history
Paul Kuehnel
Heather Vaughn often walked her dogs past a simple, sturdy brick church building at 224 Orange St. in Wrightsville.
It always caught her eye. One day, she made contact with the owner’s wife. It would be eight more months until she got a call saying it was available to buy.
In 2014, Heather and John Vaughn II purchased the property, a former African Methodist Episcopal Church, which closed in 1962. “We had just bought another property down the street, because we invest, and timing was really, really bad”, Heather said.
“I don’t have any children. I don’t have a pocketbook fetish. I don’t have a shoe fetish," she said, referring to how the couple spends their money. "Like, we need to make this work because this is an opportunity we will never have, and it’s just such a cool thing.” she said.
It would be another four years until the couple could begin work in 2018 to transform the church into a two-story home, as work schedules for other jobs and funding fell into place.
Over those four years, the couple — with input from the community — thought about what the old church should become. Stories swirled in the small town with rumors from a brewery to apartments. In the end, “It didn’t speak anything other than being a really cool home and something that somebody would just love to spend their time in, because that’s what we did,” Heather said.
Neighbors told the couple that before the church closed in 1962, they would hear members constantly singing from inside. Heather said that she has always had a feeling when inside it that it was "a very joyous place."
The building has several date stones on it. An 1891 corner stone signifies when the building was constructed. An 1816 stone above the front door signifies when the conference was formed for the African Methodist Church in Philadelphia, according to Heather. An earlier 19th century date stone that is almost illegible is on a back corner of the building.
According to a document at the York County Heritage Trust, during the early 19th century there were about 100 Black families living in or near Wrightsville. Early records tell a story of growth and evolution during that time, with multiple Black churches in the borough.
According to George R. Prowell in his book History of York County, “Previous to the Civil War many negro slaves followed the underground railway to Columbia and settled there. Some of them remained in Wrightsville and in 1855 an African Methodist Episcopal Church was established on Orange Street.”
A brick building built in 1854 on the Orange Street lot was condemned and a congregation of 95 members built the new 1891 church, according to the York County Heritage Trust document.
By Dec. 15, 1962, the congregation at Bethel A.M.E. was down to four people and closed, according to a newspaper clipping of that time. The last members of Bethel were Blanche Barton, Sylvia Randolph, Alberta Bear and Mary Bear Reed, according to that article.
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The building had been used for storage for years and was just a shell, but the Vaughns salvaged original details left inside and incorporated them into the home. An early inspection of the structural integrity of the building passed with “flying colors,” Heather said, so work consisted of building a home within the sturdy shell and repointing the brick outside.
Many of the blue and purple leaded stained-glass windows had been lost over the years, but what could be salvaged were rebuilt by an Amish craftsman and installed in the front four, second-floor windows with cedar framing instead of lead.
Huge 8-foot interior doors with a stained-glass window at top that once served as a foyer for the front door on the first floor were moved to the rear of the building as a single unit to create a doorway for a master bedroom. There is also a living space, kitchen and second bathroom on the first floor. The original door with its hardware that opens to the second floor stairway remains.
On the second floor, wainscoting and the original wood floor were kept from the original worship area. The large space has been left mostly open with the exception of two guest bedrooms at the rear.
“We just wanted to pay homage to what it was, it’s basically a time-capsule. If you didn’t preserve it… you would never have known it was an African church,” John said.
After living in the house since January 2020, the Vaughns, always looking for a new project once one is completed and watching the current housing market, decided that now was the time to sell.
The 3,300 square-foot house is listed for $495,000. For more information, visit the the Nathan Krotzer Team/RE/MAX listing.
I have captured life through the lens since 1983, and am currently a visual journalist with the USAToday Network. You can reach me at pkuehnel@ydr.com.