Awards Recognize Historic Building Renovations and Preservation Around Oregon

History in the Making

A couple buys a 107-year-old church and fixes it up themselves to become a community hub

written by Melissa Dalton

MATT AND YUKA Hollingsworth weren’t exactly looking for a church when they bought one. In early 2021, they were in Portland, where he had recently left Nike after five years in retail design there, and she was a freelance fine artist, including illustration, painting, and drawing, who had previously run an arts and crafts school in San Francisco. They wanted to start their own business, most likely a creative studio offering workshops. “Essentially my goal was not to have a boss anymore,” said Matt Hollingsworth. “We just wanted to have our own thing.”

They began looking for commercial space, when their friend and realtor brought them to a 1916 church on the corner of Northeast 23rd Avenue and Sumner Street in Portland. Known as “The Little Church,” the building was a longtime neighborhood fixture, originating as a Norwegian Danish Congregational Church, and bought by a succession of faiths before being outgrown by each in turn.

By the time the Hollingsworths took a tour, the pull of the property was such that their business took shape to fit inside. “It’s quite prominent in the neighborhood and had a lot of charm,” Hollingsworth said. “I could sense the potential.” They added events to their business plan, since the church had a large sanctuary with high ceilings on the main floor that could be used for off-site retreats and weddings, while the full apartment in the basement and backyard garden were perfect spots for the workshops. Each congregation had altered the building just a bit, so it needed a cosmetic overhaul to unify it, which Hollingsworth led over a year-long remodel. “I’ve always had an old house, so I enjoy that type of thing,” he said.

Matt and Yuka Hollingsworth couldn’t pass up buying “The Small Church” in Northeast Portland to convert it into creative spaces.

Shane McKenzie/Portland Imagery

He started by pulling out the dropped ceiling in the main sanctuary and exposing the rafters, then adding skylights to enhance light and air circulation. “As much as possible, we were careful to not change the original portions of the building,” he noted. “As we started going through the process, we thought, ‘Let’s just do it right.’” To that end, he added insulation, a new roof and HVAC; refinished the wood floors; and restored the original leaded glass windows.

Mildred Hall main gallery, after renovations.

Shane McKenzie/Portland Imagery

The basement was gutted and opened up to accommodate groups, and the concrete floors there repolished. Out back, running bamboo had sprouted beneath the deck, so Matt tore it all out and rebuilt. A painting contractor was brought in to strip down the exterior wood and give it a fresh coat, with copper gutters as the finishing touch. “I was here every day,” Hollingsworth said with a laugh. “I didn’t have clean clothes for a year.”

Mildred Hall basement, after renovations.

Shane McKenzie/Portland Imagery

Mildred Hall deck and outdoor area, after renovations.

Shane McKenzie/Portland Imagery

Along the way, he found relics from the church’s past—like a sign announcing the service of its original Norwegian pastor— and researched the building’s history. By the time the couple opened in 2022, a neighbor suggested submitting the project to Restore Oregon’s annual DeMuro Awards, which celebrate historic preservation efforts all over the state. Matt wasn’t sure they’d qualify: “There’s a lot of really strict rules for restoring something, and we didn’t follow a guidebook,” he said. “We just tried to keep what was original as intact as possible.”

But it turns out, their approach indeed fit the criteria, and they were one of eleven winners announced in a November ceremony. These days, community is what the building, now called Mildred Hall, is all about, with its slate of workshops, from yoga to cooking demos to arts-focused classes, and events. “The real fun of working on the project was whenever we were out front working in the garden, people would come by and ask what we were doing,” Hollingsworth recalled. “They’d get so excited and happy that we were restoring the building and making a space for the community to use it.”

Historic Preservation Around Oregon: 2022's DeMuro Award Winners

Restore Oregon was founded in 1977 with the goal to preserve, revitalize, reuse and activate community around shared historic places. Since 2013, the organization’s annual DeMuro Awards have raised visibility for historic preservation projects statewide. “We really try hard to, not only represent the whole state in this program, but also all levels of preservation,” said Nicole Possert, executive director. “Not just capital ‘P’-preservation, but good reuse of buildings. And not just in a professional setting, but as in the example of Mildred Hall, DIY efforts as well.”

Read on for more 2022 DeMuro Award winners:

PAE Living Building (Portland)

Lara Swimmer

Occasionally, the organization recognizes new construction, such as this five-story, 58,000-square foot, mixed-use ubergreen Living Building that sits where a parking lot used to be in a National Historic Landmark District. The building has the “look and feel” of a historic building, said Restore Oregon, but will last 500 years thanks to sustainable construction.

Lara Swimmer

Lara Swimmer

CD Putnam’s Ready Wear (La Grande)

Dale Mammen

Built in 1911, this storefront sits next to the Orpheum Theater in La Grande’s Historic District. It was rehabbed by its owners with several grants, in order to revitalize a main street. “It’s a really good case study of maintaining the connectivity of downtowns,” said Possert.

Dale Mammen

Steeplejack Brewing (Portland)

Steeplejack

When this 1909 church on a highly visible corner of Broadway went up for sale, there were only two bids on it, one of which was from a developer who wanted to tear it down. Instead, it was sold to the owners of Steeplejack Brewing, who restored it themselves to fashion a craft brewery, bar, restaurant and coffee house.

Steeplejack

University of Oregon Gerlinger Alumni Lounge Rehabilitation (Eugene)

Hennebery Eddy Architects/Josh Partee

This is a meticulous restoration of a 1922 Georgian-style building associated with two key figures in the university’s history: Irene Gerlinger, the first woman Regent, and Ellis Lawrence, the first dean of the architecture school.

Applications for the 2023 DeMuro Awards are open now. Learn more or apply at www.restoreoregon. org/apply-for-the-demuro-awardsexcellence-in-preservation