Stamford congregation ready to downsize
STAMFORD — The once-expanding membership at Zion Lutheran Church peaked somewhere around 1955, the year it added a gymnasium and parish hall to the sanctuary built some 30 years earlier by German and Eastern European immigrants.
Then little by little, as its congregation dwindled, the church shed its superfluous real estate. Two homes behind the main building at 128 Glenbrook Road were sold. A small two-family home beside the gym, accommodations for a pastor and sexton, had fallen into disrepair and was demolished, rather than replaced.
And now, the church is selling its entire property, hoping a growing congregation will take its place.
“We’re like empty-nesters,” said Richard Rosum, a lifelong Zion member and the listing agent for the property through Halstead. “Our children have moved on and we have very few young people.”
Rosum is among the few of its 50 remaining members who remember the church from its earliest days. An old book on Zion shows him as a young child with his parents — and him years later with a wife and two children.
“I was probably baptized in this little bowl right here,” he said, pointing to a white marble baptismal font in the church sanctuary, which features colorful stained-glass windows and a stone nave.
Deciding to sell wasn’t easy for the congregation, which is only entertaining offers that would keep the building as a church, or at the very least condos retaining its historic features. Built in the Gothic Revival style, the red brick church — the only one of its kind in Stamford — is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The property, across from Daskam Park in Glenbrook, contains a 24,000-square-foot building with a sanctuary, gym, offices and nursery school, on 1.3 acres, and is listed at $3,176,000.
“This is a big place, and we really want to sell it to a growing church that has a need for a lot of space,” Rosum said, adding that the decision to sell was reached by the entire congregation.
“It seems foolish to tie up all the money in buildings when we could be using that money for our missionaries around the world,” he said.
At one time, Zion accommodated 1,000 families — cars used to flood the surrounding streets during three Sunday services, Rosum said. But without young people joining, the congregation is dying off. There’s no longer Sunday school and the average age of its members is around 65.
“We recognize that we don’t have any young people,” he said. “If you don’t have any young people in any organization, it can never continue. Eventually, we know — whether it’s one, two, three, four or five years — Zion will no longer exist.”
The congregation hopes to work out a deal with a future buyer to rent space for services and dinners, and operate its food pantry. Zion already leases space to St. Peter and St. Andrew Coptic Orthodox Church.
The gym, once a space for weddings and other gatherings of up to 300 people, is now sometimes used by the Stamford Parks and Recreation Department and Board of Education. It has a stage that Rosum said once featured Robert Schmidt, better known as Buffalo Bob Smith from Howdy Doody, leading Sunday school.
“Even our pastor (Rev. Harvey Weitzel) said the Lord is telling us something,” Rosum said. “It’s time to move on because nothing lasts forever — except Christ.”
Know of a house or apartment building with an interesting story? Contact eskalka@stamfordadvocate.com.
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