Where can we find greater structural clarity than in the wooden buildings of the old?” asked the legendary Bauhaus architect Mies van der Rohe. “Where else can we find such unity of material, construction, and form? Here the wisdom of whole generations is stored.”

This might seem surprising coming from such a rigorous modernist. But Mies understood that architecture was part of a continuum, and that antecedent forms held infinite lessons about engineering, construction, and intention that could all be deployed in buildings of today.

Donna McNeil, former director of the Maine Arts Commission and the founding director of the Ellis-
Beauregard Foundation—which supports the work of visual artists in the United States—is cut from the same cloth. Whereas Mies looked to the old for knowledge, McNeil sees potential for adaptive reuse and perhaps a little mischief.

“I love architecture and working with my hands to reveal the inherent beauty of a building,” she says. “And I like living in structures that were designed for something else so that I can play.” When McNeil was hired by the foundation in 2017, she relocated to Rockland from Portland, where she had lived in a loft in a converted industrial building. 

Seven years ago, she saw a circa-1861 white clapboard house of worship (known locally as both the Second Baptist Church and Cedar Street Church) for sale by the owner. “I know a lot of people in town looked at that church,” recalls the arts advocate, writer, and curator. “But I think they all just got intimidated. I’m not easily scared.” 

The owner was Peter Davis, a musician and luthier who lived in half of the 4,600-square-foot building and ran a studio and gallery out of the other. Separating them was a cloth partition running down the center of the room from the entrance to a stage (a later addition to the original sanctuary below a choir loft). Davis had done a lot of the brass-tacks renovation work, so it wasn’t a dilapidated money pit. 

However, what sold McNeil was the 18-foot-tall windows—four on each side of the nave—that flood the space with natural light. “The light is extraordinary,” she observes. “It gives you this sense of being lifted.”

Like McNeil’s former residence, which, according to the earliest records on file, operated as a store in the city’s Old Port in the 1920s, the church had lived many lives. It was a social hall during the Civil War; a Baptist and, later, a Christian Science church; and offices for the Salvation Army. Davis had, among other things, revamped plumbing, fixed the tin ceiling, added some heating, and removed drop ceilings to reveal the church’s vaulted volume.

McNeil, therefore, worked directly with Stevan Hall, a Rockport carpenter and, she says, “jack of all trades,” rather than an architect to customize the space for her residential use. She put on a new roof, installed a new boiler, pulled up red carpeting, and painted the wood floors white. She rebuilt the front steps and replaced the makeshift railing of two-by-fours with a pipe version she painted bright yellow. She also replaced the front door, a cheap plastic version with decal “stained” glass. To give it a more important sense of arrival, McNeil framed the new double-door entry with vertical wood slats.

Two years ago, she turned heads by painting the entire structure black. Of her neighbors’ reaction, she recalls roguishly, “They felt it was a symbol of some satanic work happening inside.” Eventually, however, they chalked it up to her eccentric artistic tendencies. And after many gatherings to which she always invites those neighbors, McNeil’s and another house next door (whose owner has made similarly bold design decisions) are jokingly referred to as the “North End Arts District.”

Actually, McNeil was inspired by black-painted churches in Scandinavia. “That kind of gave me authority to proceed with an idea,” she explains. “It reduces the mass visually, making the building disappear into the night. And it’s a big hit at Halloween.”

Inside the front entry is the original terrazzo-floored foyer. To the left is a library and stairs to the old second-floor mezzanine; to the right is a powder room, a hall with a full bath, and a guest room, one of four bedrooms in the home. McNeil redid these baths and added another above the sanctuary that now serves both the primary and another guest bedroom. The reno of the downstairs hall bathroom revealed a door that had been boarded over, but neither McNeil nor Hall could figure out where it may once have led. Its original door had graffiti from the 1800s carved into it.

Almost everything was already painted white, but McNeil supplemented the palette with gray in various spaces, such as the choir loft and primary bath. Otherwise, the envelope remains monochromatic. She worked with Lowe’s to fabricate the kitchen, pairing black IKEA cabinetry with white stone countertops (on the island, the stone continues to the floor at both ends).

The biggest challenge was, arguably, lighting. Usually, kitchens combine overhead pendants and undercounter lights. But the soaring volume that at one time made the Holy Spirit happy also presents a very mortal issue: “You can’t hang anything from the ceilings because they’re so high,” notes McNeil. “You have to be imaginative.” So, in the kitchen, she illuminated surfaces with a combination of table lamps and adjustable wall lights. (Davis had already hung some Deco-era pendants from the 21-foot-high ceiling.)

The furniture is mostly a blend of midcentury modern classics—Bertoia, Eero Saarinen, her mother’s Danish modern bedroom set—and antiques that run the gamut of periods and styles. Into that mix are added items McNeil herself made, such as the dining table and the Donald Judd–inspired daybed in the library, along with occasional contemporary pieces, such as a Murano glass floor lamp. 

Naturally, as befits someone immersed in the arts, there are works by many painters, photographers, and sculptors, almost all Maine-based and quite a few who went through residencies at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation. These include painters Reggie Burrows Hodges, Andrea Sulzer, and Greg Parker; sculptors Anna Hepler and Oliver Solmitz; and photographers Dylan Hausthor and Scott Peterman.

A church, of course, is a place where people come together. Other than McNeil’s home, this remains a chief function of the space. “As we repurpose these buildings, I want to honor the community gatherings that happened here,” she says. This incarnation has hosted meetings that bring her foundation board in closer contact with the artists they serve and provided lodgings for some of those artists. 

Other activities would likely not have been sanctioned by the Baptists who built the structure. McNeil, an almost compulsive entertainer, says, “I once had 60 tango dancers perform. I threw a birthday dance party with disco lights and a smoke machine. It’s like an installation space.” 

But McNeil doesn’t really need an audience (or congregation) to enjoy this particular platform for art. When she wakes up each morning and walks out onto the former choir loft, likely possessed by the lifted voices that once echoed there, she says, “The first thing I do is sing into the space.” She strikes a diva’s pose and, sweeping her hand outward, demonstrates with a resonant “Laaaaaaaa.” 

Bravissima.