Will Conyngham, at podium, and Carol Lavery, seated, chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Luzerne County Historical Society, spoke to the council to share their enthusiasm on acquiring the former St. Cecilia Catholic Church property, next door from Wyoming Area Catholic School at Tuesday night’s Exeter Borough Council meeting.
Tony Callaio | For Times Leader
EXETER — Members of the Luzerne County Historical Society (LCHS) made an appearance at the May Exeter Borough Council meeting Tuesday evening to introduce themselves as one of the newest property owners in town.
Will Conyngham and Carol Lavery, chair and vice chair, respectively, of the LCHS, spoke to the council to share their enthusiasm on acquiring the former St. Cecilia Catholic Church property, next door from Wyoming Area Catholic School.
And to offer the pews to anyone who might want them.
Everyone is invited to the former church to take the pews from 3 to 6 p.m. Thursday, May 8.
“Bring your pickup truck and chains and get there early, because there is a huge interest in people acquiring a pew,” Conyngham said.
Repairs and renovations
“When the diocese of Scranton decided to sell St. Cecilia’s, we got early word on it, and we thought that’s an awful lot of space for a very attractive price, so we bought it at the beginning of last month,” Conyngham said. “It’ll take years before we are what we want to be. We have so much design work; we’re talking to architects.”
Conyngham estimates it could take up to three years to get the building to where they would like it to be for their needs.
The former church has been vacant for approximately four years, and much has deteriorated since, and needs to be repaired to prevent any further damage.
Lavery said she’s chairing the fundraising committee and the new facility committee responsible for the new design of the building, the contracting and future plans for the structure.
Good neighbors
“We are really here because we just wanted to introduce ourselves, and our main purpose is to be a good neighbor,” Lavery said. “We can assure you that we are very soon going to have the shrubs and everything cleaned up, so the building will look once again as it had done four years ago before it was put on the market. We were just starting right now to do some renovation or some structural work to ensure that stop the roof from leaking and stop the damage that is occurring.”
Lavery said the LCHS is very happy to be situated next door to Wyoming Area Catholic School where students would be able to utilize their building for educational purposes.
“Our building is going to be most of all a community center, somewhere where people can come, particularly children, and we’re so excited that it is right there next door to that school, and that those school children can come in every day, if they wish to have an opportunity to learn,” Lavery said.
There will be many different kinds of exhibits that will be changing. Currently, the LCHS has over 200,000 items in its collection that need to be displayed, and the former church is ideal, according to Lavery.
In addition to a community room and a research library planned, there will be plenty of parking behind the building.
