After 125 years as a house of worship, church becomes a home

A 125-year-old former United Brethren church in Oakdale, Calif. has started a new chapter as a home. Instead of a congregation and the sound of hymns reverberating from the 22-foot ceiling, there is a family of five and the sound of children laughing and a toddler’s feet scurrying across the original hardwood floors.

“My husband found the listing for the home Christmas evening and we immediately thought this is a once-in-a-lifetime place and such a cool story,” said Faron Moreno, who bought the home with her husband Vic Moreno.

If realtor Denise Cash and custom home builder Allen Martin had not seen the potential in the aging, neglected church, it likely would have been demolished. The city owned it, had no use for it and wanted the lot it was on for parking.

Cash and Martin bought it for $1, moved it to a lot four blocks away and spent seven months transforming it. Martin added a 772-square foot addition, rewired and replumbed the existing structure, and repurposed wood for the custom cabinetry and island, as well as the brick foundation to make a walkway.

The Morenos wanted unique. Moving from a country home in Escalon, they had been searching for a place in Oakdale where Vic Moreno works as a high school physical education teacher and wrestling coach. Faron Moreno works as an Oncology dietitian at Memorial Medical Center.

After three months with no luck finding that character-home they dreamed of, they were about to settle on a new-build in the Bridle Ridge neighborhood in southwest Oakdale. But on Christmas night, after all the activity had settled down, Vic Moreno decided to go online and take another look at the listings.

When he saw the home, on the corner of First Avenue and C Street, he immediately recognized it; he’d driven by the home dozens of times but just thought it was a church being renovated.

That was less than two hours after Cash had listed the home. She hadn’t planned to list it until the following day but the home had become very special to her so she said the thought occurred to list it on a special day.

“From start to finish, everything felt like it was meant to be,” Cash said Thursday.

She hadn’t thought anyone would be home-shopping Christmas night but the next day she was showing the home to the Morenos. She told the kids they could pull the rope in the foyer that rings the bell in the steeple high above the front door, but they were too shy.

“From a practicality standpoint I didn’t think it was the best fit at first, but she wasn’t going to let me say no,” Vic Moreno said. They have 7- and 1-year-old boys and a 5-year-old girl and it’s a three bedroom house.

“He’s the one who likes to be very well-informed and I’m the impulsive one, so once we saw it the next day I was done,” Faron Moreno said, sitting on a couch next to Vic in the great room of their new home, one of the features that most attracted her to the home.

“We love the whole one-room living room (kitchen and dining) concept with our three little kids being in the same place and cooking and watching TV and doing homework,” she said.

On Dec. 28, Faron Moreno’s birthday, the couple made a full-price offer on the three-bedroom, three-bath, 2,510-square-foot home and moved in a month later.

Their 7-year-old son Roman gets his own space in the loft bedroom upstairs. He might eventually share it with little brother Gino, who is still in mom and dad’s room. Mila, 5, is in the junior suite; her cathedral bed matches the cathedral windows in the great room.

The family is happy to have found a home completely opposite from the cookie-cutter style they might have end up in otherwise. The kids still haven’t rung the church bell, which is fine with mom and dad who don’t burden neighbors with it too often.

The home is the oldest structure in the neighborhood – built in 1893. There are some lovely remodeled Victorian and craftsman-style homes nearby, “but nothing like this,” Vic Moreno said. “Plus She always hassles me about going to church and ...,” he shrugged and smiled at Faron. “... now I live in one so she can’t hassle me anymore.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2017 at 10:50 AM with the headline "After 125 years as a house of worship, church becomes a home."