Barbara Dillavou has been coming to the Grace United Methodist Church in the University Hills neighborhood since the 1960s, or, to put in her words, “forever.”
Her place of worship was heavily damaged by a fire in May 2023 when the outside brush was set ablaze, damaging the roof and sending a destructive amount of smoke into the main hall.
“It damaged almost everything in here,” Dillavou said. “They had to replace, clean all the pews and the books and everything. It was a big job, and so then they just decided at the same time to make some other improvements.”
Services were held in the fellowship hall until the repairs could be made. Since reopening in mid-October of this year, Dillavou said it’s been “marvelous, very good to be back.”
“It was a real celebration,” she said.
The church, located at 4905 E. Yale Ave., is colloquially known as “the pumpkin church” in the neighborhood, as it hosts a large pumpkin patch each fall before Halloween.
Rev. Seth O’Kegley, who has overseen the church since July 2022, said some of the repairs included replacing ceiling panels (that was because someone had thrown a cinder block through it during repairs) as well as removing the pews after smoke had billowed in from the outside.
The total cost of repairs was about $600,000, O’Kegley said, which was partially covered by the church’s insurance. Other funding came from the church’s endowment account.
“We had a row of bushes on the side, and I’m not sure if someone was warming themselves, I don’t know, not my place to judge, but someone caught the bushes on fire and it spread and caught the roof on fire,” O’Kegley said. “Although we did not have fire in the room, the smoke had ruined everything.”
The reverend said the carpet had to be replaced and the pews and the interior had to be deep-cleaned. Large beams also had to be replaced.
Credit: Eric Heinz
“What we had to do was take half of the roof off, fly new beams in and put the roof back on,” he said. “The damage was pretty intense for not even having fire in the room. It was kind of the perfect storm of circumstances.”
According to city of Denver documents, Grace United Methodist Church was constructed in 1955, although O’Kegley said the main worship center was completed in the 1960s and the campus was built in “chunks.” The property has a little more than 26,000 square feet of building space.
O’Kegley said the architecture of the worship center was inspired by the story of Noah’s Ark, which can be seen in the curvature of the tall wooden ceiling in the form of the hull of a giant ship. Delays due to waiting for the insurance check to come and winter weather set the church back several months from reopening the worship center.
But once everything was ready, the church was able to not only make the area functioning again but also to build an addition to the stage and get rid of some excess closet space.
“We’ve just got a few touch-ups left,” O’Kegley said. “We try to recreate the Noah’s Ark look, both in reference to God protecting Noah and the family, but also the Ark of the Covenant that held and protected the word of god.”
O’Kegley said there may have been deeper meaning in the disaster that nearly destroyed the worship center, as the Methodist faith calls its followers to “a life that is kind of dispersed,” to love and serve people anywhere.
“The church is not just a building by any means,” he said. “It’s the people, and that was affirmed in our fire because we had to move to the other side of the building. Having a home is very important and this room has been our home … to gather, to worship, to marry people, to bury people. We do all the pastoral functions in this room, but then we’re inspired and we’re changed here to go out … and really love the world in the way that Christ calls us to.”