It's no wonder the San Pedro Chapel was sorely in need of a fix-up in recent years. • The quaint little structure — built in the heart of the Old Fort Lowell Neighborhood in 1932 — had served variously as an active parish, an artists' gallery, a theater, a private home and a community center. • Now, after an intensive four-year restoration effort, the neighborhood is hosting a celebration and open house Sunday to show off the revitalized chapel. See the box on Page E3 for details.
"It's a wonderful true mud adobe building and one of our city's historic landmarks," said Bill Anderson, president of the Old Fort Lowell Neighborhood Association and a prime mover in the restoration effort.
"It was an active chapel from 1932 to 1948," when a larger church was built in a nearby neighborhood to accommodate worshippers, Anderson said.
Neighborhood resident Jeanne Turner, who chaired a master-plan committee for the area, said the chapel has had a colorful history since its days as a religious center.
In addition to being used as a movie theater, gallery and residence, the building sometimes sat empty and gave rise to superstitions, Turner said.
"Kids in the neighborhood once considered it a haunted house — a real spooky place — when it was unoccupied," she said.
Anderson said the chapel, purchased by the neighborhood association in 1993, now serves as a meeting place and community center for the area.
Restoration
Previous restoration on the exterior of the chapel, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, included work on the windows and repair of stucco in the mid-1990s.
Neighborhood residents determined that much more work was needed to bring the interior of the 1,370-square-foot building back to something like its 1932 condition.
Janet Marcus, secretary of the neighborhood association and a former member of the Tucson City Council, said a Pima County bond election in 2004 provided more than $300,000 to pay for restoration work.
Tasks included removing a low ceiling and reinforcing timbers, removing kitchen facilities, returning walls to their original condition and installing equipment for air conditioning and heating.
Additional work on the two-acre site included construction of a new support building with bathrooms and a kitchen area, improving pathways and lighting, planting vegetation and adding parking spaces.
The improvements make the chapel site more appealing for area residents and visitors — and also increase its utility as a rental space.
"We rent it for weddings, meetings, parties, family celebrations, memorials and other events," Turner said. See accompanying box above for rental information.
Marcus said the restoration work "makes the chapel a much more charming place for weddings and other events now."
For neighborhood residents and others driving by on Fort Lowell Road, the building remains an enduring reminder of days gone by.
"This chapel celebrates our heritage," Marcus said.
Did you know
Before the San Pedro Chapel was built, a previous chapel on the site was blown down by a tornado in 1929.
