Divine dwellings

St. Ann's Catholic Church undergoes a conversion

The Daily Inter Lake

Need a huge apartment with two confessionals, a true cathedral ceiling, a bell tower and a choir loft?

Everett Sheffield had one for rent but not for long. He recently rented the last and largest of his four apartments, which were created within the former St. Ann's Church in Somers.

He said it wasn't too difficult to find four people happy to live in heavenly spaces without spending a holy fortune.

Sheffield, of Bigfork, took up the task of remodeling buildings into apartments to keep himself busy after retiring from the University of Montana, where he taught quality control in manufacturing.

"It's a hobby," he said.

Sheffield said he wouldn't want to try to make a living out of creating rentals. His drive to do everything just right eats into the profit margin.

"My wife says I'm too much of a perfectionist," he said with a laugh.

But he points out the payoff is in happy renters and very few maintenance problems.

"If you do things right, there's never anything to fix," he said.

Sheffield took the same approach with his first project. He converted a former railroad-tie company house next to the church into a four-plex.

That's how he came to buy the church property. When St. Ann's parish merged with St. Catherine's of Bigfork to form the new Pope John Paul II Catholic Church in 2005, the St. Ann's building went up for sale.

"I really wasn't looking for a project," Sheffield said. "But I knew somebody would do something with the building."

He didn't exactly hear a heavenly voice compelling him to save the circa 1904 historic church. A pragmatic man, Sheffield said he needed parking

space for the tenants of his four-plex next door.

On his first tour through the church, Sheffield said he could envision how to create four apartments while maintaining the integrity of the church. He was impressed with the stability of the basic building, not to mention a bonus of fairly new high-grade carpet.

Sheffield bought the building, then tackled the remodeling, which took about a year. He worked a regular schedule, five days a week with weekends off, with one full-time carpenter, Dale "Bud" Talbot.

Other people pitched in to help with cleaning, painting and drywall taping and texturing.

"You can see we didn't have to change it too much," Sheffield said as he began the tour in the huge apartment in the main body of the church.

In the entry, he built a coat closet and topped it with a grid of wood that mirrors decorative grid work in the pulpit area ceiling. It provides a division of space without obstructing the soaring cathedral ceiling.

Sheffield applied the same concept to defining a kitchen. He built a free-standing wall which he then spanned with a wooden grid over to the church's side wall, creating a galley kitchen.

"The organ used to be there," he said of the kitchen space. "It's a pretty traditional kitchen, a little upscale with the flat ceramic range top."

St. Ann's sacristy, the area where priests donned their vestments, made a perfect oversized bath for the loft-style apartment. He created more upscale touches like a granite counter and large soaking tub separate from a walk-in shower.

Sheffield kept the pair of confessionals, with a priest cubicle between them, intact. Each retains its kneeler and its sliding window obscured by heavy screens.

The confessionals are perfect double closets for the renter.

Sheffield continued the tour up a staircase to the choir loft then into a small room below the now-empty bell tower.

"The bell went to the new church," Sheffield said.

Along with the bell, Pope John Paul II church salvaged wood from St. Ann's old pews to build decorative interior walls as mementos for the parish.

Sheffield saved all but two of the original windows by changing the lower part from frosted to clear glass. As a result, the tenant enjoys more light and a beautiful vista of the Flathead Valley, including Big Mountain on clear days.

Because Sheffield preserved the charming gothic windows and other features of the church, former St. Ann's parishioners such as Terry Mimnaugh, a Lakeside artist, enjoy the outline of their little mission church still gracing the Somers skyline.

"It's in every single picture of old Somers," Mimnaugh said.

A member of St. Ann's since 1978, she appreciated Sheffield's sensitivity to preserving the character that she and the longest-term parishioners, Helen Ebert and Anna Drew, loved so much.

Ebert, 85, said she was involved with St. Ann's from her birth and baptism in 1921. She remembers cleaning, cooking and holding many bake sales with other women in the old church.

"We were like one big happy family," she said. "Like Somers used to be."

Ebert remembers the stories told by her elders about the days before electricity. It was quite a sight, with people migrating from around the town carrying lanterns as they headed off for Mass at St. Ann's.

No memory stands out more for Ebert than Nov. 6, 1943. On that day, she walked down the aisle at the little church to marry Vernon Dale Ebert.

"It was a nice Saturday afternoon," she recalled. "The sun was shining."

She and her husband raised two children in the church. Vernon passed away 14 years ago.

Although a small parish, Ebert said it was standing room only during the summers when tourists came for Mass. People regularly traveled from as far away as Polson and Kila to become a part of the St. Ann's flock.

"People loved it," she said. "It was such a homey church."

Built by the Rev. Henry Arts in 1904, St. Ann's was dedicated by Bishop John Patrick Carroll (of Carroll College fame) on Oct. 29,1905.

The little mission saw a century of Sundays before the parish combined with Bigfork's former St. Catherine's. Ebert said more than just Catholics remember those many Sundays in Somers.

"All the people tell me they miss that bell ringing," she said.

While Ebert hasn't yet seen the inside of the renovated church, Mimnaugh and her mother toured the building with Sheffield. The developer recalled they were pleased.

"They loved it," he said. "They could see it wasn't chopped up with a chain saw and made to look like something else."

Sheffield said he feels good about the project, calling it safe and secure. In spite of expensive changes like replacing much of the electrical and plumbing and the entire mechanical system, he has no regrets about taking custody of St. Ann's.

Mimnaugh feels much the same about the church selling the building to Sheffield.

"He's been so respectful of the building," Mimnaugh said. "He realized it was us passing on the torch to a new steward."

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.