by Mike Tamara
BEFORE
AFTER (Proposed Rendering)
Last spring, St. Leo the Great Parish in Demopolis, AL embarked on plans for a full renovation of its small but stately nineteenth century neo-Gothic church, entrusting Studio io with the design. Under the leadership of the Very Reverend Justin L. Ward, S.T.L., who is both the Parochial Administrator at St. Leo and the Vicar for Sacred Liturgy for the Diocese of Birmingham, a comprehensive interior renovation plan was developed.
Like many older churches, St. Leo had undergone numerous piecemeal alterations, subtractions, and rearrangements throughout the decades of the mid-to-late twentieth century, in addition to surviving a fire that gutted the original sanctuary. The primary goal was to restore a proper reflection of the heavenly realities of the sacred liturgy in the art and architecture of the church, while also accentuating and bringing back much of the Gothic detail that had been lost or obscured. While not a strict historic restoration, the new design is nevertheless heavily informed by the original interior, and indeed will appear that it might have been original.
To that end, almost all of the wooden furnishings are being newly crafted by New Holland Church Furniture, with the exception of a vintage baptismal font and an antique reredos donated and refurbished by a parishioner with generational family ties to the parish. The new items include an altar of sacrifice, an elevated chalice-style ambo, a full communion rail with gate, a new confessional, a complete pew replacement, and numerous interior door replacements. Both the new and old are made of quartered white oak, with a distinctive quatrefoil and lancet pattern repeated throughout, and stain variations consistent with those already in the church.
These furnishings will all be unified under foot by the installation of reclaimed heart pine flooring throughout the sanctuary and nave and overhead by a new decorative paint scheme undertaken by Murals by Jericho. The scheme is heavily focused in the vaulted sanctuary ceiling—where the Holy Spirit, depicted in the form of a dove, will be surrounded by a deep blue field studded with gold stars—and flows out more lightly into the nave in the form of a simple organic stencil pattern.
Work is progressing on schedule, and Fr. Ward expects the rededication of the church to take place in March.