Precious piece of history is for sale
Woonsocket’s Precious Blood Parish Rectory is put up for sale by diocese
WOONSOCKET – With its unique copper spire and Victorian Gothic styling, the Church of the Precious Blood and its adjacent rectory are among the most visually stunning structures in the Providence Diocese’s considerable portfolio of local church architecture. And now you can own a piece. Amid a new wave of consolidation, the diocese put the Precious Blood Parish Rectory on the market this week, acknowledging that it no longer needs the elegant three-story at 94 Carrington Ave. Pastor Michael Kelley, one of many priests in the diocese who oversee operations at more than one church, lives in St. Agatha’s rectory, where he also says Mass regularly, about two miles away.
“It’s just a matter of what happens, the diocese doesn’t have a need for it at this time,” said Joseph Accetto of BisMarc Properties in Providence, the listing agent for the property. “So we put it on the market to spare the parish the expense of having a closed building.”
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Precious Blood was among the earliest communities of worshippers founded by the predominant immigrant group of the era – the French-Canadians. The church and the rectory both date back to the 1870s, but the rectory – originally a more modest wooden structure – was updated
several decades later by the one of the leading architects of the day, Walter Fontaine, who gave the building a look that’s more harmonious with the church. Thus, city records give the date of construction for the rectory as 1920.
The structure is a living testament to a more robust time for the church. Among the features contained in its 10,127 square feet of living space are six baths and nine bedrooms, including four full suites where priests used to sleep. It also has a kitchen, a common living area, a full basement and an attached five-bay garage, which is actually located beneath an adjacent parking lot.
Hardwood floors, sweeping staircases with curved, wooden banisters, stainedglass windows and a working elevator with a folding, accordion-like entry grate are among the interior details that give the building an authentically antique feel.
After commissioning an appraisal, the diocese is asking $329,500 for the property, including 4,895 square feet of land the rectory sits on.
Like most other churchowned real estate, the property is exempt from taxes. But the city pegs the worth of the building at far more than the asking price – about $1.1 million, according to the assessor’s database.
While a sale is likely to transfer the property to the tax rolls for the first time, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt said the effort to sell the property is not an occasion to celebrate.
“It saddens me to know the parish needs to move in a different direction with their rectory,” said the mayor. “It’s such a beautiful church and rectory… I’m sure they’re saddened they have to do this also. I’m sure they wish things were more in line with how they were several decades ago.”
Because the rectory is so close to the church, Baldelli Hunt says, “I was a bit surprised to learn it was going on the market.”
Although suggestions that the site would make a nifty bed and breakfast have triggered something of a buzz on social media, Baldelli-Hunt says the diocese may be a little choosy about who it sells to, given the proximity of a church that’s still in use.
Reached for comment Wednesday, the diocese initially seemed unaware that the property was already listed for sale, saying it had commissioned an appraisal but had not yet given the goahead to market the rectory. After being apprised of the listing, a spokeswoman for the diocese said she would look into the matter and provide further comment, but none was received as of press time.
The diocese has shed a number of assets of late, including St. Maria Goretti Church in Pawtucket, which closed in October. St. Edward’s Church, also in Pawtucket, closed about two months later. Recently, the diocese announced that St. William Church in Warwick will close at the end of the month.
Roman Catholics in the city are keenly aware that church consolidations are nothing new here, either. In the 1990s, the diocese’s decision to shut down St. Ann’s parish – home to one of the largest collections of Italianate frescoes outside of Europe, was hotly opposed by churchgoers, who saw it as an affront to their French-Canadian roots. They ended up forming a non-profit organization which now runs the deconsecrated church as St. Ann Arts & Cultural Center.
Even before deciding to sell off the rectory house, Precious Blood wasn’t what it used to be. The church’s original convent and schoolhouse on Park Avenue is known today as Chateau Clare, a privately run apartment house, after being sold by the diocese many years ago.
After just a few days on the market, Accetto says he hasn’t had any bites from the listing, which can be viewed on the RI Living web site. But Accetto says the property is one-of-a-kind, well-maintained and could be used in a variety of ways.
“It’s a very unusual building,” he says. “It’s not a cookie-cutter building.”
With the necessary approvals from the zoning board, the structure could be used for professional offices, a group home or a bed and breakfast, says Accetto. “You just kind of wait and see what happens on these. The last one we sold, it turned out the people wanted to live in it.”
After posting the listing to Facebook, commercial real estate broker and Downtown Woonsocket Collaborative Chairman Garrett Mancieri says the bed-and-breakfast concept seems to have gotten the warmest welcome on social media.
“A lot of people have suggested a bed and breakfast,” says Mancieri. “It would be an ideal use for the building, especially with commuter rail coming in. It’s within walking distance to the Stadium Theater and restaurants on Main Street.”
The worst thing that could happen to the building, Mancieri says, would be to have it subdivided as permanent residences for multiple families.
“It would be unfortunate to see a beautiful building like that that just divvied up,” he said.