AROUND THE PARK AGAIN by Sharon Lee Tegler
Brought to you by Jing Ying Institute of Kung Fu & Tai Chi
It was while doing research on replacing the windows in the former Catholic church that’s known today as Boone Station Hall that project manager Bob Royer visited the chapel at Holy Family Catholic Church in Davidsonville.
Years earlier, Bob and his wife Karen had driven by the pretty chapel on their way to Homestead Gardens on Central Avenue in Davidsonville and did a double take. Though smaller, the chapel bore a striking resemblance to Boone Station Hall.
Somewhat later, Bob and Karen bumped into Holy Family Catholic Church member Chis Gordon at a Watershed Stewards Academy event. Gordon, a Master Watershed Steward, is involved in maintaining and preserving the chapel and church grounds. The Royers mentioned having seen the chapel and the conversation evolved to chatting about its similar style of architecture with Boone Station Hall. The similarities didn’t end there.
Both edifices were built as Catholic churches in the late 1920’s and, even today, they bear a noticeable resemblance to each other. Both have a bell tower and both have similarly positioned entrances. Both have windows with identical panes in the same patterns and color. However, all of the chapel’s windows are square while Boone Station Hall has a combination of square and arched windows.
Built in 1929 as Holy Family Catholic Church, the graceful edifice seen above (and in the opening photo) served the Davidsonville community well until 1982 when a larger church was built to accommodate the burgeoning congregation. The building was restored to its original state in 1991 and preserved as a church but serves as a chapel. It is one of three churches located within the Davidsonville Historic District.
Built by parishioners in 1927, the modest structure that is now Boone Station Hall was home to St. John the Evangelist Church until 1964, when construction was completed on a new church at 689 Ritchie Highway. The YMCA subsequently purchased the facility and land surrounding it adding a small building and a pool. Following bankruptcy proceedings, the property was acquired by Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1965. The newly formed Severna Park Community Center next door leased the facility from Woods and eventually renamed it Holy Grounds Youth Center. Thereafter it served as a coffee house for teens but was soon used extensively for meetings and events.
While the Woods REHAB Group was in the planning stages for their window replacement project in 2020, Royer arranged to visit the Holy Family Catholic Church chapel and was amazed by what he saw. A conversation with Chris Gordon afterward astonished Royer and led the REHAB Group to alter their perspective on their own building’s history.
“From what I’d learned, I told Bob Royer that our church was built in about 1929 from a Sears Catalog church kit,” Gordon said. “It was originally shingled but was white.”
Gordon’s comment was confirmed in an article by Angela Gambill in the Baltimore Sun in 1991 that detailed the restoration of the chapel to its original state earlier that year.
“When the fledgling congregation at Holy Family in Davidsonville needed a church building, late in the ’20s, they started flipping through the pages of the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog,” Gambill wrote. “Oral history from church members at the time recounts how the church arrived by rail at Hall Station off Route 214 and was brought by horse and buggy to its present location, where it was assembled. Older church members recalled seeing boxes with the Sears name on them.”
She added that Catalogs such as Sears offered several sizes and varieties of churches, which were shipped in large sections for assembly.
Royer, in turn, shared what he knew about the original church structure with Gordon. A history of Severna Park called “Reflections” (still available from Bay Media, Inc.) notes that a site along Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard was selected for St. John the Evangelist Church in January of 1927. Construction was soon completed, and a dedication and mass were held on September 14, 1927. As can be seen, the original church had dark brown shingles.
Having taken a close look at the Holy Family Chapel windows during his visit, Royer has no doubt they are the same as those at Boone Station Hall and now believes the St. John the Evangelist parishioners built their church from a Sears kit too. It likely came by rail to the railroad station directly across Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard from the building.
The windows in the Holy Family Chapel sanctuary are square in shape. 
Otherwise, they are like those at Boone Station Hall but without arches.
The upper panes of the original windows in Boone Station Hall were arched but, otherwise, similar as can be seen in the photo below on the right that was taken during a building renovation in 2013. From the outside, square windows exactly like those in the Holy Family chapel are visible along the back of the building and in the anteroom on the side that was converted into a bathroom.
An arched window at what is now Boone Station Hall being scraped and sanded for painting during a 2013 renovation. 
In this photo of the back of building taken in 2020, you can see square windows exactly like those at the Holy Family Catholic Church Chapel.
Both buildings have balconies at the back though the one at the Holy Family Chapel is smaller. The balcony has room for both an organ and piano and also features the bell pulls to ring the bell tower bell as well as a smaller bell.
The roomier balcony at Boone Station Hall overlooks the audience and stage. Observers and photographers lined the rail for a performance by the Freedom Choir in May of 2019 dedicated to the late Capital newspaper reporter Wendi Winters. With the pews long since removed, the former church can accommodate a sizeable audience.
Another similarity between Boone Station Hall and the Holy Family Catholic Church Chapel is that they both have bell towers. Sadly, the Boone Station Hall bell no longer exists. (It was likely removed when St. John the Evangelist’s new church was completed.)
However, the bell in the tower at the chapel peals strongly thanks, in part, to Chris Gordon who was kind enough to ring the bell during a visit by the writer. (He even invited her to ring it which was quite a thrill.)
The bell in the bell tower at Boone Station Hall no longer exists. 
The bell in the bell tower at the chapel still tolls strongly. The newer, larger Holy Family Catholic Church sits just behind the chapel.
Gordon explained that the bell was silenced following the earthquake that took place across Anne Arundel County about a decade ago.
“We had painters out about three years ago to redo the chapel’s trim and they had a lift to get them up to do the work,” Gordon said. “The bell was not working so I gave them $50 and said ‘Take me up to that belfry.’ So I went up on the lift with them and opened the little door there and found that the bell was off its rocker. I quickly went back home, built a frame, got some 2×4’s for leverage and hoisted the bell back up onto the rocker and secured it with the frame.”
Both properties have lovely campuses with handicap accessible walkways and ecologically sustainable landscaping. Boone Station Hall is renowned for its beautiful pollinator gardens full of native plants. Thanks to Watershed Steward Gordon, Holy Family Chapel has pretty grounds too with lots of rain barrels.
Though the two buildings’ origins mirror each other, they are no longer two sides of the same coin.
Their uses differ in many ways. According to Gordon, the Holy Family chapel has deliberately been kept as a church. Small and intimate, it is used primarily for weddings, baptisms and funerals. Until recently, it was also used for mass but the COVID pandemic meant all masses were conducted in the roomier new church behind the chapel where parishioners could spread out.
In the half century since the Woods congregation acquired the former church in 1965, the facility has been used for many things. While Holy Grounds Youth Center, it was managed by Severna Park Community Center and used first as a coffee house. Later it was used as a venue for meetings, bazaars and expos, concerts and theatrical performances, and dance and exercise classes like the Kendo martial arts class demonstration (below) during a Fitness Expo in 2010.
With the area where the altar used to be converted to a stage, Boone Station Hall, which is still managed by the Community Center, is a popular venue for concerts. But now and then it’s used for religious occasions as was the case with Woods Church’s Children’s Easter Service and Living Flower Cross procession on April 20th in 2014.
It was about this time that wear and tear on the sills around Holy Grounds’ windows began to be evident. Patching and repairs were done as well as possible but left a lot to be desired. By 2019 replacing the windows became an urgent problem. Finding the cost of new windows exorbitant, to say nothing of installation costs, Royer and the REHAB group were extremely relieved when contacted by Severna Park Community Center Executive Director Sarah Elder with a possible anonymous donor.
The woman’s grandfather attended St. John the Evangelist Church back in the days when Severna Park was still known as the rural community of Boone, Maryland. She had fond memories of the building and wanted to do something to preserve it. Thus, she covered the costs.
Replacing the windows at Holy Grounds Youth Center went far beyond the Woods’ REHABers group’s skills even though some are quite competent woodworkers or electricians. So the church hired a company that specializes in such installations. Very few companies will even touch such difficult work but Royer found Severna Park’s Kyle Watson of Lansing Building Products – a business that maintains its own crews of highly skilled installers – through a partnership with Action Exteriors LLC in Riva. (Original windows replaced at Historic Holy Grounds with help from anonymous donor – sharonleestable.com)
Walking into the interior of the building with Royer during the installation, it was stunning to see the window frames on the far side of the building empty of windows and open to the great outdoors.
Workmen high up on scaffolds removing the windows and/or replacing them with the new insulated “Minster” style hammer-tone glass were quite a sight.
Beneath one scaffold there were panes of the original glass, some of which will be preserved to honor the building’s history and installed in the Woods Church Youth Room.
Some of the original panes after removal. In honor of their history, they’ll be installed in the Woods Church Youth Room. 
One of the new panes being installed along with its exterior trim.
The new glass being installed by the daring young man on the scaffolding (in the right photo) was beautiful to behold.
Visiting with Royer on the day the installation was completed, Elder marveled at how much prettier the windows were. She said the anonymous donor had been by to see them and was just thrilled. Elder also had a marvelous surprise to share.
“At the completion of the renovation work, Holy Grounds will get a new name,” she said. “Because the building was constructed as a church in 1927 when Severna Park was known as Boone and was located opposite Boone Railroad Station, we are renaming Holy Grounds ‘Boone Station Hall’ as a nod to its history. It’s such a charming building that’s been used by the community for everything from weddings, concerts and theater performances to yoga classes, birthday parties, baby showers, reunions and memorial services.”
Severna Park’s Boone Station Hall and Davidsonville’s Holy Family Catholic Church Chapel continue to serve each community in meaningful ways. Born from a similar design, both represent charming sides of the same coin.
The Around The Park Again column is brought to you by Jing Ying Institute of Kung Fu and Tai Chi at 1195 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd. – For over two decades providing martial arts training that improves cardiovascular health, strength and flexibility while reducing stress. January 28 marked the start of Jing Ying Institute’s month-long silent auction fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association
