During its 100-year history, the simple yet elegant church at 605 Rice St. has served generations of Wayzata residents and housed three different congregations, making it not only the city’s oldest church but also one of its most beloved landmarks.
The site’s original structure, a clapboard building erected in the 1880s, was the only church in town for nearly 30 years. “It was an all-purpose community church,” says Lisa Stevens, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka and volunteer at the Excelsior-Lake Minnetonka Historical Society. “It didn’t matter what denomination you were; if you wanted to go to church, that’s where you went.”
The Wayzata Community Church built its home on the site in 1911, but it burned to the ground five years later. The congregation’s members sought help from the city, and “there was a great swell of community interest,” says Wayzata Historical Society board member and Wayzata Community Church member Sue Batson Sorrentino. “Everybody in Wayzata, member or not, even summer residents, helped to rebuild.”
Noted Twin Cities architect Harry Wild Jones, who had designed the ill-fated Wayzata Community Church building, was enlisted to redesign it, with a few tweaks that allowed for the inclusion of five panels of stained glass donated by Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis.
Finished in 1916, the church housed the Wayzata Community Church until it moved to its current location at 125 Wayzata Blvd. E. in 1949. The building sat vacant until the Evangelical Free Church bought it in 1952. Since 1965, it has been home to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka, which had quickly outgrown its meeting space in the cafeteria of Burwell Elementary.
“Three times it’s been a starter building for congregations,” says Sorrentino. “It’s also served so many needs of the community, whether religious or as a place for gathering and camaraderie.” When an old school building burned down in 1920, Sorrentino says, classes were held in the church’s Sunday school rooms and “everybody graduated on schedule.”
Last May, the Wayzata Historical Society, the Wayzata Heritage Preservation Board and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka sponsored an open house at the church, with members of all three congregations coming together to mark the centennial with a celebratory service and speakers sharing memories and historical information about the building.
On July 30, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka broke ground on a new 11,000-square-foot building at 2030 Wayzata Blvd. E., which means the century-old church is once again up for sale, as of this writing.
“It’s a very beautiful and significant building, but for a number of reasons it’s time for a new space,” says the Reverend Kent Hemmen Saleska, citing membership growth and the desire to expand church programming as motivators for the move. “We’re hoping to sell the building to someone preservation-minded.”
Sorrentino echoes that sentiment, remarking that “it would be sad to lose it to a brick office building with no character. We hope by telling its story that we can get someone to fall in love with it.”
Ideally, the building’s new owner would put a preservation easement on the property, ensuring that the exterior retains its charm while allowing for changes and upgrades inside the church.
With several months to go until the congregation begins meeting in its new home, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka and the Wayzata Historical Society are eager to secure a future for the Rice Street church that has served the community so well for so long.
“I would love to see it as a community center, art gallery or performance space,” says Sorrentino. “We just need to get someone out there with a plan.”
