In 2009 our home remodeling service took on a task far larger than any other it had previously. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Trinity Church of Pass Christian was almost entirely destroyed. The only remains of the once beautiful building was it framework. The church leadership was very busy helping those in need after the storm, and after a while it formed a building committee to reconstruct the church. The committee bounced ideas around for a while before asking us to rebuild the church.
We were not interested in such an endeavor at first. We were (and are) a home-building and home remodeling service, not a commercial construction company. But the church persisted, so we started to talk.
The project started just at the brink of our comfort level and its scope gradually increased. Ideas such as “let’s build Trinity on piers” or “let’s add offices back here” spread quickly. The project became something much larger than we ever expected, but the incremental addition of new ideas was manageable.
In 2010 we were able to proudly finish the project. We are very grateful to have had the amazing opportunity of restoring this prominent piece of local culture. Trinity is near and dear to our hearts.
Some points of interest:
- The original Trinity never stood on stilts. After having two sanctuaries wiped out by hurricanes, the church decided to plan for the future and put the building 14 feet above the ground.
- Leah Watters was the architect for the project. Leah is the daughter of MTAC’s founder Matt McBride.
- On September 10th, 2011 Leah married Tyler Watters in the very church that she had designed and her father had built.
