How we protected an old chapel's sanctuary and Sunday-school library as quiet places for music and contemplation — a closed partition turned double-sided screen, living quarters repurposed with care, and uplifting music kept playing day and night.
When we first walked through the old chapel in Forest, two things struck us at once: the stained-glass murals, glowing even through the dust, and the stillness. The building had been a country church for more than a century — built and dedicated across 1849 and 1906 — and the quiet inside it felt almost kept, as if it had been stored up through all those years of Sunday mornings. We knew right away that whatever else we did here, our first job was to protect that quiet.
A partition, and a screen
The main sanctuary and the old Sunday-school rooms to the south were once joined by an open partition. To keep the sanctuary a true quiet room — set apart for music, study, and contemplation — we closed that partition and turned it into a movie screen on both sides. From the sanctuary side, you can watch a film or a lecture in the hush of the murals. From the Sunday-school side, the same screen faces the living quarters. The two halves of the building can each have their own life without disturbing the other, and the sanctuary stays the sanctuary.
The Sunday-school rooms, repurposed
The southern rooms that once held Sunday-school classes are now the private living quarters: a bedroom, a guest room, a bodywork and treatment room, an art studio, and the old Sunday-school library, kept as a library. We were careful to keep the character of the rooms — the tall windows, the woodwork, the sense of a place built for gathering — while making them livable year-round.
A few small but meaningful comforts went in along the way. The upstairs restroom was remodeled and finally got heat and a bathtub — a small luxury in an old building that had none. Downstairs, the old kitchen became a collage: the walls are covered in pages from last year's seed catalog, a bright patchwork of every heirloom we hoped to grow, a reminder through the winter of what the garden would become.
Music day and night
We keep uplifting music playing in the sanctuary day and night. It is not a performance — it is the heartbeat of the room. We study daily in front of the stained glass, and most days we simply marvel at the beauty and the work that went into this building, and wish to share it with the community regularly.
Why we are here
We were both raised in traditions with a love of music, gardening, art, good food, and neighborliness — the kind of upbringing where the ordinary skills of a good life were practiced out loud and shared. When we found this property available in 2023, it somehow felt like just the place to put all of that to work.
We work from the sanctuary. It is the homebase for Brandon, a therapist serving neurodiverse individuals and the adults who care for them through TrueNorthNeuro.org, and for Val, whose work lives at ValWise.org. Forest Sanctuary is a WholeFam.org effort — a small family of projects rooted in the same simple belief, that neighborhoods can take care of themselves through gardening, quiet, the domestic arts, and a willingness to share goodness.
We primarily enjoy the property for the growing season, and our work can take us away — especially in the winter. In our absence, our beloved sanctuary caretaker, Ben, tends the property and keeps the music playing and the doors looked after.
Home, and welcome
Over the past two years we have felt warmly welcomed in Forest, and we are proud to call it home. We love learning, we love sharing goodness, and we hope this old building can be a quiet good thing for the community for a long time to come. The door is open — come see it.
