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Luzerne County boasts a glut of neglect. On Thursday, King’s College unveiled a stellar example of the exact opposite.

We spent millions to save the Hotel Sterling before razing it. We made big plans for the historic Huber Breaker before selling it for scrap. For every gem we save, we scrap a dozen (look no further than the county’s lost churches).

Even when the value of a place is visibly priceless, we are unable to conjure the will to save it. The distinctive architecture of the Irem Temple in Wilkes-Barre made it a no-brainer for the top ten in any preservation list. Yet it had to fall into a state of disrepair until efforts to save the building began.

On Thursday, King’s showed not only how to preserve an historic building but why. Former members, their friends and families came by the score to share memories of time spent in the 147-year-old edifice, and to take in the remarkable job the college did restoring it to new life as the school’s chapel.

It has been 11 years since the Memorial Presbyterian Church closed, and eight years since King’s bought the property without a clear vision for it. But it turned out to be time well spent.

Carpets disappeared from the floors, the wood refinished to a gloss highlighting the beauty of age unattainable in new construction. The new white marble under the 1956 altar carved from 4,500 tons of anthracite coal brilliantly complemented furniture from the church that had been meticulously restored.

With the original pews sold long ago, King’s did not look for the cheapest replacement, or bring in the padded seats from the chapel this one will replace. The college hunted down vintage pews from a church in Massachusetts and had them restored.

Many may not have noticed, but a small choir sang from the back of the nave, in a pair of pews elegantly curved at each end, forming a slight arc. And two life-size icons of religious figures key to King’s history and mission — Blessed Basil Moreau and Our Lady of Sorrows — hang on each side of the large main doors that open onto North Street.

The restored stained-glass windows likely looked as bright as the day the church first opened, particularly the trio depicting the three children of Calvin Wadham who died of Scarlet fever, lost souls the church memorialized.

The service drew Kenneth Swatt and wife Marion, who wed in the church six decades ago. It brought sisters Julie Sgarlat and Mary Martin, daughters of Memorial Presbyterian’s last pastor. And Doris Garrett came to see the coal altar her cousin Charles Edgar Patience carved. They and others had equal reactions. “Beautiful.” “Gorgeous.” “I love it.”

King’s did more than restore with a mix of local and distant, of past and present. The college added a section with restrooms, offices and a meeting space. The whole space will be known as the Chapel of Christ The King at the George and Giovita Maffei Family Commons, starting another chapter in the building’s long book. Hundreds, even thousands of future students will walk through its doors and make it part of their lives, their lore passed on to children.

And that’s what historic preservation is all about.

– Times Leader