SEQUIM — Coming soon: a place in the midst of the city where people can slip away for a quiet respite any time of the day or night.
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church at 525 N. Fifth Ave. is to be the site of a 24-hour chapel open to all regarless of faith, said the Rev. Robert Rhoads, rector of the white, steeple-topped church a few blocks from downtown.
Plans to build began last year, and the addition of the chapel started earlier this spring; Aldergrove Construction, the Port Angeles company overseeing the project, forecasts a July 1 completion.
“It will have a view of the Olympic Mountains,” Rhoads said, adding that the chapel, a compact 14-by-24 feet, will be lighted at all times.
Five stained-glass windows will grace the space, letting the sunshine in, and for seating, St. Luke’s will reuse pews from its original church built in Dungeness in 1894.
That building has been moved to downtown Sequim and today serves as Jean’s Deli; the newer Fifth Avenue church was finished in 1992.
Rhoads will furnish the 24-hour chapel with an altar, also from the old church, but there won’t be services or sermons there.
Place for reflection
This is a place for reflection, he said, a place to let one’s mind and soul rest.
“We invite people in,” Rhoads added, “people who are having a tough day.”
The chapel and church are surrounded by medical offices, the Jamestown Family Health and Dungeness Valley Health & Wellness clinics and the Olympic Medical Cancer Center.
Rhoads wants caregivers, patients and their family members from those offices to know they will be welcome in the chapel at any time.
The path to this place, however, hasn’t been smooth.
The original cost estimate was $108,000, but the final bill will come to around $120,000, Rhoads said.
A Clallam Public Utilities District transformer had to be moved from the chapel site, said building committee chairman Dick Neal.
It would have been a fire hazard if left where it was.
To relocate the box, “we had to cut down a tree, a Douglas fir, and that broke my heart,” Neal added.
St. Luke’s also paid some $1,900 in building-permit fees to the city of Sequim.
Yet as the chapel has taken shape, it’s lifted Rhoads’ and Neal’s spirits.
The ceiling will soar 5 feet higher than originally planned — 19 feet at the peak — and Rhoads said the stained glass and orientation toward the Olympic Mountains make the space work even better than he’d imagined it.
There won’t be a lot of fanfare the day the chapel opens, but in September, Bishop Greg Rickel of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia will travel to Sequim to bless the space.
St. Luke’s parishioners and a few others donated funds for the project, Rhoads added.
The 24-hour public chapel is part of the church’s long-range expansion plan, so other fundraising events, such as an organ concert this Saturday afternoon, are on the horizon.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
