Luxury Condo – in a Church!

Church-turned-Condo is Heaven on Earth.

$700,000 purchase price including bell tower, two bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms.

The 22nd Street Condos, in Pittsburgh’s historic South Side neighborhood, were built inside a former church that was erected in 1902 as the home of the Catholic Lithuanian St. Casimir parish 1)

The condo is built into the choir loft of the church. St. Casimir’s was the first parish for Lithuanians in Pittsburgh. It was closed in 1992 by (now) Cardinal Wuerl in the first round of parish reductions for Pittsburgh. The interior pews, organ and other artifacts were moved to Holy Trinity Church in Pilviskiai, Lithuania. 2) It was a part of a process of decline that has continued to the present day. As an aside, Arcadi Nebolsine, for whom we have written an obituary on this blog, was involved at some point in the fight for preserving Pittsburgh’s Catholic ethnic parishes – it may have even been before Donald Wuerl’s tenure at that diocese. It was one of the first of his many campaigns to preserve historic art and monuments – even though Nebolsine was not a Roman Catholic!

The conversion of the church to the present luxury condominium complex took place in 2017-2019:

How did a closed church become a luxury living space? Developer Ivor Hill describes stumbling upon the old building one night when leaving guitar class. Someone had attempted a conversion, and the building contained two apartments and a yoga studio. It was listed for sale for only $600,000. Shortly before closing, Mr Hill sat on the former altar and began sketching out his plans….1)

1. St-Esprit, Meg, Church-turned-Condo is Heaven on Earth, The Wall Street Journal at M1 (April 16, 2021)
2. Global True Lithuania: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania