Historic St. John's Episcopal Church in Tampa to Restore Bell After Years of Silence
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TAMPA — It took two years for St. John’s Episcopal Church’s founding parishioners to raise the $100,000 needed to erect their yellow brick house of worship in the 1920s. It has taken today’s parishioners less than a year to raise $2 million of the $3 million needed to rehabilitate the 96-year-old structure at 906 S. Orleans Ave. in Hyde Park.
“We’re restoring just about everything in this sacred space,” said Rev. Christian Wood, the church rector. That includes the bell, which Wood has never heard ring. In 2020, the tower was deemed too unstable, so the half-ton bell was silenced. Wood arrived two years later and was charged with leading the renovation of the church that is listed as a contributing structure in the Hyde Park Historic District.
The bell was removed and placed in the courtyard. “When I got here, there was a fear that the bell may fall through the tower,” Rev. Wood said. Fundraising began at the start of this year, with most of the money coming from parishioners. Recently, Hillsborough County awarded the church a nearly $100,000 Historic Preservation Challenge Grant that is, in part, earmarked for repairing the bell tower damaged by water intrusion and termites.
The goal is for the bell to ring by the end of 2025. That will likely mark the completion of the restoration project. The building recently received a new roof, and the exterior’s mortar is currently being fixed. Inside, a new air conditioning will be installed, water intrusion damage to the ceiling will be repaired and the stained glass windows and 4,000 organ pipes will be cleaned. The church leaders and the estimated 600 parish families will continue to fundraise for the final million dollars.
If they fall short, money will come from reserves. Rev. Christian Wood gives a tour at St. John's Episcopal Church. Founded in 1912 as a mission, the church was originally known as St.
John’s By the Sea and operated out of a wooden structure on the southeast corner of Orleans and Morrison avenues. They became a parish in 1917 and then, in 1922, purchased the adjacent lot for home of a future church building.