If you have walked along Stockley Gardens of late, you may have noticed a majestic 1915 Queen Anne home standing for sale at the corner of Raleigh Avenue, across from our church. Completed just six years after our own sanctuary and with its beautiful brick facade, classic porch, and timeless presence, 801 Stockley Gardens has anchored this neighborhood for over a century. Just like Christ & St. Luke’s! 

Today, we are delighted to share an extraordinary piece of news that marks a new chapter in God’s Story, and Our Story. After much prayer and discussion between our staff, clergy, and vestry, our parish has made a successful offer and is now under contract for the purchase of this historic home and we will be folding it into our campus expansion. The acquisition is a bold investment in the future of our parish, an expansion of our missional capacity in Norfolk, and the catalyst for a truly comprehensive campus plan. Christ & St. Luke’s is choosing to step forward in faith, deepening our commitment to the Ghent community and our region. 

We want to take you behind the scenes of how this historic opportunity came to be, explain why this property is so vital alongside our new building development, and invite you into the exciting vision taking shape across our expanding parish home.

A Growing Church and a Space Crunch

To understand why 801 Stockley Gardens is so pivotal we have to rewind slightly, and look at the broader story of our parish over the last few years.

Christ & St. Luke’s is experiencing a period of remarkable revitalization. Across every dimension of parish life, from Sunday worship and musical offerings to our Thursday Lunch Ministry, adult formation series, children’s programs, and community outreach, our spaces are humming with activity. We also host a thriving preschool in Lloyd Hall from Monday to Friday, thanks to our relationship with The Williams School. But with that growth comes a very real physical constraint: we are bursting at the seams.

For nearly three years our vestry, clergy, staff, and leadership teams have been actively exploring every possible avenue for additional space to house our expanding ministries. You have seen this primary effort take shape in our plans for the new building on our Boissevain Avenue lot. Through extensive feedback sessions with parishioners, neighbor consultations, and iterative design work with Work Program Architects (WPA), we have carefully defined the essential needs for that new building: modern gathering spaces, dedicated meeting rooms, administrative offices, and a spacious parish hall capable of accommodating everything from large seated dinners to community programs like the Norfolk Winter Shelter.

Yet, as we continued to receive feedback from the parish, the city, and neighborhood stakeholders, an important question emerged: Even with all the fantastic capabilities of the new building, would it be large enough to accommodate both our immediate spatial needs and our future long-term programming ambitions? Furthermore, building out the Boissevain lot means utilizing a parcel that has provided one of our few flexible footprints, raising ongoing questions about parking, green space, and our long-term campus layout.

In our pursuit to leave no stone unturned, our leadership team explored every available option in the immediate vicinity. We even looked into feasibility studies and preliminary drawings for other properties on the block — including a thoughtful exploration of neighboring institutional spaces — to determine if partnering or acquiring more square footage made sense. None materialized but the process produced an invaluable breakthrough: it allowed our vestry and leadership to articulate a far larger, more imaginative vision for how our physical campus could serve our parish and our city for decades to come.

And that is when some once-in-a-generation good luck struck.

A Rare Gem on Stockley Gardens

In late September, 801 Stockley Gardens suddenly came onto the market. Built in 1915 and held for decades by the Hillegass family, this 7,105-square-foot landmark property sits on a nearly .5-acre lot across from our church. It is one of the most spacious and architecturally significant properties on Stockley Gardens.

When the property went up for sale, our leadership team recognized immediately that this was a rare, fleeting window of opportunity. Knowing there was competing interest from other buyers in the market, Fr. Noah and the vestry moved expeditiously but diligently. We conducted multiple thorough professional assessments of the structure and convened several emergency meetings of the vestry, who voted unanimously to submit a competitive bid. That bid was accepted, and we entered a formal due diligence period, which has now concluded. The findings did not uncover anything that would deter the sale, and we expect to close in early November.

Why was there such clarity in the decision? Because 801 Stockley Gardens offers a unique combination of historic charm, versatile physical layout, and strategic geographic positioning that cannot be replicated:

• Expansive Formal Interior Event Space: The ground floor features grand, light-filled parlors and formal dining areas that provide an immediate, elegant setting for formal receptions, like after funerals or concerts.
• Flexible Upper Areas for Ministry: The upper floors contain numerous rooms that could be used  for many types of parish programs such as specialized adult formation, small-group reflection, counseling, youth ministry, or strategic community partnerships.
• Dedicated Parking: The property includes generous outdoor space which could offer much-needed off-street parking slots in the heart of Ghent. (This works in tandem with our separate ongoing arrangements with neighborhood partners to secure additional parking options for Sunday mornings).
• An Irreplaceable “Sense of Home”: Perhaps most importantly, 801 Stockley Gardens possesses a warm, domestic atmosphere that no newly constructed hall can fully recreate.

As we noted during our walkthroughs, there is a distinct emotional quality to a historic home. It communicates comfort, sanctuary, and domestic warmth. For people coming to church seeking a safe harbor, whether they are processing grief, returning to faith, or looking for a quiet space to meet with a small group—801 Stockley Gardens offers a comforting, inviting environment where you immediately feel at home.

The Power of Comprehensive Campus Planning

A natural question that might arise is: If we are acquiring 801 Stockley Gardens, does that mean we no longer need the new building on Boissevain Avenue? 

The answer is we need both, because they fulfill two distinct and complementary roles in the future life of our parish.

Rather than looking at each project as an isolated, piecemeal decision, this acquisition allows us to pivot to a Comprehensive Campus Development Strategy. Instead of requiring a single new building to be all things to all people, and trying to squeeze high-capacity multi-purpose halls, quiet administrative suites, youth rooms, and cozy fellowship parlors into one footprint, we can now design our facilities in concert with one another:

• The New Building on Boissevain: Will serve as our primary operational hub designed specifically to meet high-capacity and practical facility needs. It remains essential for housing main administrative offices, modern accessible meeting spaces, and a large multi-purpose parish hall designed for high-attendance gatherings like parish-wide meals, diocesan events, and major community outreach programs like the Norfolk Winter Shelter.
• 801 Stockley Gardens: Offers unique spatial options and future flexibility rather than a replacement for current facilities. Its warm, domestic character opens up exciting possibilities—such as intimate receptions, small-group retreats, pastoral care, quiet prayer space, or strategic civic and community partnerships—providing versatile options as our needs develop over time.

The new spaces will also allow us to rethink some usage of the existing church buildings. By dividing these functions all our buildings can excel at what they do best. The new building provides the scale and modern infrastructure required for large-scale operations, while 801 Stockley Gardens preserves the warmth, architectural heritage, and intimate fellowship space that our parish family treasures much like the old Guild House used to. Together with our historic church, they will form a cohesive, beautiful parish campus.

Financial Stewardship, Transparency, and Due Diligence

Whenever a church announces a major property acquisition, thoughtful members of our congregation will naturally ask important questions about finances, due diligence, and stewardship. We want to address those directly and transparently.

How is This Purchase Being Funded?

First and paramount: No operating funds or annual stewardship pledges are being used to purchase 801 Stockley Gardens. 

Our annual pledge campaign directly supports our day-to-day operations—paying our staff, operating our current buildings, funding our worship and music ministries, and supporting our missional ministries which serve the broader community. That operating money remains completely separate.

The $1.2 million purchase price of 801 Stockley Gardens is being funded entirely through non-operating capital funds and generous lead gifts contributed specifically for capital expansion and our upcoming capital campaign. The process has full permission from lead donors.

Moving forward, the acquisition and necessary restoration costs will be incorporated into the comprehensive capital campaign that we will be launching in the coming year.

What About the Condition of the House?

We enter this purchase with our eyes wide open. While 801 Stockley Gardens is structurally sound—a fact confirmed by multiple professional building inspections and structural experts—it is an older historic home that has sat underutilized for several years. The porch needs structural reinforcement and it will require some time and a thoughtful investment in renovations to bring systems up to standard, improve accessibility, and ensure that the property is fully functional for parish and community use.

We are not rushing this process. We are working deliberately with architects, engineers, historic preservationists, and city officials to plan these renovations carefully, ensuring every dollar invested is spent wisely and responsibly.

What About Community and Neighborhood Impact?

Christ & St. Luke’s takes pride in being a good neighbor. Preserving this historic property prevents it from falling into disrepair or being commercially redeveloped in a way that disrupts the historic character of Ghent. Furthermore, any future programming hosted at 801 Stockley Gardens will be developed in close conversation with the city, neighborhood civic leagues, and local stakeholders, ensuring our presence continues to be a source of blessing, beauty, and stability for Stockley Gardens.

What Comes Next?

This acquisition is a moment for celebration, but it is also an invitation to dream together as a parish about what is possible. Owning 801 Stockley Gardens opens up exciting new horizons for what ministry at Christ & St. Luke’s can look like. 

Over the coming months we will discuss those dreams together as a parish. We want to hear your thoughts, ideas, and questions. We will start by inviting every member of Christ & St. Luke’s to join us for a special Parish-Wide Campus Update Meeting on Sunday, November 15 following the 10:15 a.m. service.

During this meeting, Fr. Noah, and our architects will first present detailed visual plans of the new Boissevain building and ask for feedback. Then we will offer a few ideas for how we might utilize 801 Stockley Gardens in conjunction with that new building, and open the floor for questions. 

A Bold Expression of Faith

Throughout our history, Christ & St. Luke’s has been defined by a willingness to lead with courage and step forward in faith. Expanding our campus is a bold declaration of our long-term mission in Norfolk. We are laying a strong foundation for generations to come—grounded always in experiencing, living, and sharing the story of God’s abundant love.