This huge, old church can be your next home for $600K — bell included (2024)

Imagine it’s getting close to dinnertime and the kids are out playing who-knows-where, and they’ve let their cell phone batteries go dead again, or they’re just having too much fun to notice your call or text. Wouldn’t it be great to have something like a church bell you could ring to signal it’s time to come home? Even better, what if you had a real church bell?

Well, for anybody in the market for a 3,300-square-foot house with hardwood floors and lots of potential, the bell tower at the Navesink United Methodist Church is fully functional, and the bell comes with the property.

After 138 years as a house of worship, the wooden Gothic-revival style structure could become a house, period. Listed at $650,000, the 1881 church on Navesink Avenue in Middletown is for sale by its congregation, the Atlantic Highlands Navesink United Methodist Church, which has another, larger building in neighboring Atlantic Highlands, where far more of its members attend services and its community programs are based.

The Navesink church is in a residential zone in Middletown’s Navesink Historic District, and leaders of the congregation, their realtor, and local officials believe the most likely buyers will be imaginative people who will modify the interior just enough to make it a comfortable and extraordinary living space.

“You’re going to get the right person or persons in there, and they’re going to be creative or innovative, and they’re really going to appreciate the magnificence of the building,” said Gary Scharfenberg, a county freeholder and former Middletown mayor, who chairs the township’s landmarks preservation commission.

“From a sacred point of view, I don’t know if that’s the ideal,” said Scharfenberg, an archeology professor at Monmouth University who just won a state Assembly seat in the 13th district. “But at least it saves the superstructure.”

Reuse of former churches is nothing new in Monmouth County or elsewhere, though restaurants are more common than homes. For example, Old Glory Wine & Spirits in Keyport and Bart’s Restaurant in Matawan are both housed in buildings that used to provide mainly nourishment for the soul.

Navesink church leaders joined their realtor, Bernadette Barnett of Sotheby’s International Realty in Rumson, to show the church on a bright morning last week, when sunshine through the original stained-glass windows bathed the oak pews in a heavenly glow.

The fate of the curved, honey stained pews is uncertain, said trustee Donald Gates, a member of the congregation since 1980, whose daughter was married in the Navisink building. Gates suggested the buyer keep at least some of the hand-carved antique pews, with the addition of custom cushions and a large-screen television, for a home theater.

Wood also extends part-way up from the hardwood floors, with oak wainscoting rising to just below the stained colorful leaded glass windows. Overhead, the wood ceiling gives the impression of the inside of a ship’s hull.

The original wood clapboard exterior of the church is shrouded in aluminum siding, which would be up to the buyer to remove.

An addition to the back of the church that includes a large eating or meeting area, an oversized kitchen and a half-bath, invites a wholesale makeover. A pair of unfinished basem*nts could provide storage space or additional rooms.

Barnett, a veteran broker with experience in Hong Kong, California and New York, said this was the first house of worship she had ever handled, though she and others noted that conversions of churches to secular uses were not uncommon, especially for restaurants. She said about a dozen potential buyers had looked at the church, most posing the same question:

“‘What can we do, what can we do here?’” Barnet said. “The main interest seems to be as a single family (home).”

The answer, said Scharfenberg, is quite a bit, at least on the inside, as long as the changes meet construction codes.

Township officials at first said ringing the church bell — by pulling on a soft cotton rope that hangs in a corner at the base of the bell tower on the building’s main floor — appeared to be permissible between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., according to the township’s noise ordinance, which does not address church bells specifically.

However, Township Administrator Tony Mercantante, later issued a statement suggesting the church bell could not be used.

“If the church were to be turned into a house, the homeowner would not be permitted to use the bell and ring it,” read the statement, issued late Monday afternoon. “A bell is a normal and customary component to a house of worship. However, it is not normal and customary for a single family dwelling. Therefore it would not be a permitted use or activity. In theory it could physically remain, but they could not employ it.”

The congregation’s pastor, the Rev. Jill Hubbard-Smith, said selling the ,

“it took three years of deep soul-searching, and a lot of tears, to reach our decision to sell this beautiful church building.”

But ultimately, the decision was to sell the building and use the sale’s proceeds to fund the congregation’s community work and social services, which are provided mainly at the Atlantic Highlands church and its education wing, at Third and Garfield avenues.

The Navesink church is one of several historic religious structures in Middletown, which was incorporated in 1798, but had been settled by European Christians for more than a century before then. Structures that predate the Navesink church include the New Monmouth Baptist Church, the Dutch Reformed Church, and the Middletown Christ Church, built in 1744.

As a key structure in the Navesink Historic District, Scharfenberg said the Methodist church "is clearly eligible for the state and National Register of Historic Places."

“Being a historic landmark like that doesn’t preclude you from reuse and revision," he said. But, he added, "There’s just a right way to do it.”

The church still fills its curved, honey oak pews on special occasions, including an All Saints Day celebration on Nov. 1 that featured a jazz trio.

But Gates said turnout in Middletown had been dwindling in recent years, now down to some 20 worshippers for a typical Sunday service, in a sanctuary that seats about 150.

“We’ve lost so many members to death, people moving away, so many people fade away and don’t come to church,” said Gates, 70, a retired occupational safety chief for the state.

The Atlantic Highlands location hosts a food pantry that serves more than 300 local families; a monthly “Community Soup” lunch, free to all; Al Anon meetings for friends and family of alcoholics; a Family Promise program to keep families housed together during and after natural disasters; and bible study classes, a book club and movie nights.

A pair of the Navesink church’s stained glass windows that had graced the sacristy, just behind the pulpit, have already been moved to the Atlantic Highlands church, where they will be installed in a comparable location, as a gesture of continuity and unity between the two houses of worship.

Congregant Steve LeGrice of Atlantic Highlands, a veteran magazine writer and editor who helps with public relations, said the Navesink church is a cherished asset of the congregation, but one whose earthly value can now do more good liquified, to help the poor, feed the hungry and house the homeless.

“As Methodists,” LeGrice said, “we have an obligation to be in the community. And that’s where we want to focus our resources.”

NOTE: This story was updated to reflect a comment from the Middletown township administrator submitted after publication asserting that the ringing of the church bell would not be permitted if the building becomes a private home.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.

Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.