A GEM OF A GYM
In Galveston, restoration begins on a 134-year-old chapel as tough as its namesake
GALVESTON — The Rev. Benjamin Eaton was a lucky guy. He was gored by a deer, fell under a train and attacked by knife-wielding assailants, but escaped death until, on Palm Sunday 1871, he collapsed on his pulpit while sermonizing on life’s horrific end.
Eaton’s Trinity Episcopal congregants named a chapel after him. But that building — designed by famed Galveston architect Nicholas Clayton — led a rugged life as well. Mildewed on the outside, termite-chewed and rafter-rotted, it slowly sagged and cracked until — four years ago — its ornate Gothic second-floor sanctuary was vacated.
Now, thanks to a $1.5 million grant from Galveston’s Moody Foundation, the 134-year-old Eaton Chapel adjacent to Trinity Episcopal’s main Ball Street church, may prove as lucky as its namesake.
Under the direction of Houston architect Graham Luhn, workers are cleaning and stabilizing the building in preparation for full restoration to be completed by Palm Sunday 2017.
For 60 years, the building’s second-floor sanctuary was used as a Trinity Episcopal School gymnasium. Its ground floor, restored after Hurricane Ike’s 2008 flooding, consists of an architecturally bland commercial kitchen and parish hall.
When restoration is finished, windows will feature their original monochrome stained finish; wainscoting and stenciled ceiling arches will reclaim pristine brightness; compromised structural elements will be repaired or replaced; and the upper story, for the first time, will be
air conditioned and accessible to the handicapped.
Exterior work will include replacing rotten wood and repairing the plaster sheathing on brick walls. Finally, artisans will replicate the intricate painted tracings that made the chapel’s plaster walls appear to be made of stone.
“In many ways,” said Trinity rector, the Rev. Susan Kennard, “Trinity Episcopal is the center of life in Galveston. Physicially, it’s how you oriented yourself to where you are in the city.”
The Ireland-born Eaton arrived in Galveston, by way of Wisconsin, in 1841 — and quickly found the Republic of Texas city was, indeed, a place only for the rugged.
“I know little about this town, but I already have seen and heard enough of the Republic to cool my Texas fever,” he wrote his bishop. Eaton expressed regret for trading Wisconsin for a locale “where I shall experience almost any privation a civilized man can endure.”
Locals returned the sentiment, with one observing that the church’s founding rector was so “cold and churchy that he made you feel as if religion was on ice from January to December and frozen stiff in eternity.”
Eaton’s life-threatening mishaps at times shade into the apocryphal. But in 1842, reports historian David McComb, Eaton fled his church as it was battered by a hurricane. Later, according to church lore, the minister was gored in the leg by a deer, the antler barely missing his femoral artery. On other occasions, he reportedly fell — or was thrown — under a train and attacked by men armed with knives.
In 1857, Eaton oversaw opening of Trinity Episcopal’s current church, designed by island builder-architect John DeYoung. Eaton also expressed a desire that his congregation erect a chapel building, but his wish went unfulfilled until 1882, a full decade after his death.
Clayton, celebrated for designing some of the state’s signature late-19th century buildings, including Galveston’s Bishop’s Palace and the University of Texas Medical Branch’s “Old Red,” arrived on the island in 1872 to oversee construction of a Presbyterian Church.
“By far, he was the pre-eminent architect in Galveston in the late-19th and early 20th centuries,” said Drexel Turner, a visiting University of Houston architecture professor and co-author of the 2000 “Clayton’s Galveston.” “More than anyone else, he shaped the city.”
Clayton worked in variety of architectural styles, he noted, with the Eaton Chapel reflecting Norman Gothic influences.
“What’s so beautiful about Clayton’s work,” said Dwayne Jones, executive director of the Galveston Historical Foundation, “is that he had a sense of restraint that some other architects of the period didn’t have. He had a superb mastery of materials; his buildings were well-finished. They are inspirational types of places.”
Luhn, the architect whose previous restoration projects have included Houston’s downtown Cotton Exchange Building and Galveston’s U.S. Customs House, said Eaton Chapel “pretty much represents the best of Clayton’s work.”
“The biggest challenge has been the extent of the damage done by storms, primarily, and, secondly, the termites,” he said. “That was not visible until we got into the building. The ground floor was restored after Ike, but the second floor was used and abused by the school as a gymnasium. Balls of all kinds were thrown around.”
Kennard said the construction of a new gymnasium for the church school “kicked the whole restoration project into motion.” “The entire upstairs stood empty, begging us to envision what we could and should use the space for,” she said.
When restoration is completed, Kennard said, the chapel, equipped with a stage, will be used for a variety of church functions. It also will be available for wedding receptions and other public events.
From the start, Kennard said, community contributions have made the Eaton Chapel possible. Church women’s groups, aided by 19th-century Galveston philanthropist Henry Rosenberg, raised $18,000 needed to erect the building.
Kennard said her congregation, with an average Sunday attendance of 185 people, has launched a campaign to raise $600,000 to augment the Moody Foundation grant.
“Here’s the reality of the restoration: What got the ball rolling was this fabulous grant. Our congregation couldn’t have done that whole $2.1 million,” Kennard said. “There’s nothing like philanthropists.”