A house of God goes single-family with granite countertops

The one time sanctuary is now the cozy living room complete with a newly added fireplace and lowered timber ceiling.(Photo: Frank Espich/The Star)

The obvious thing would have been to convert the baptismal into a hot tub all their friends suggested it but Joel and Lauren Hope Harsin figured they needed a pantry more than they needed a hot tub, so the baptismal became a pantry.

Plus, said Lauren, "We might have had a problem with humidity." And on top of that: "When we have kids, we'd worry about safety."

Such practicality would seem at odds with the 30-something couple's earlier decision to pay $85,000 for a raccoon-infested, century-old church building that had sat vacant since the early '90s then put some $400,000 more into it.

"Well, we both like projects," explained Joel, "and we both had experience."

In fact when Joel and Lauren met, in 2009 on Match.com, it was renovation that brought them close. He, a firefighter with the Indianapolis Fire Department, was fixing up a 1918 house in Irvington. She, an interior designer, was doing the same to an old house in the Kennedy-King neighborhood.

They married in 2011 and soon after bought the old Second Christian Church building on West 9th Street in the Ransom Place neighborhood. The seller was the preservation group Indiana Landmarks.

Landmarks had acquired the African-American landmark in 2007, saving it from court-ordered demolition by agreeing to stabilize it to the tune of $200,000. It then put the church up for sale.

For four years the property sat. "Not everyone sees residential potential in a historic church," Landmarks' Mark Dollase said. "The Harsins have imagination and a creative approach."

The project naturally has dominated the Harsins' spare time. They left the framing and the drywall to others but did about everything else themselves. She ran new electrical wiring, an electrician checking her work. He painted and assembled a faux stone fireplace. She installed toilets and faucets. Her father made stair railings. She found antique objects an organ, closet doors with help from her mother, who owns the home furnishings shop Chatham Home.

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A house of God goes single-family with granite countertops