Before you, Bethany Presbyterian Church stands as a testament to faith. Bethany Presbyterian Church is a place where community, history and hope intertwine. Designed by architect Scott Quintin, this modest Romanesque-style church was built between 1931 and 1932. The construction cost $75,000. That is roughly $1.15 million today.
Bethany Presbyterian Church got its name from the town of Bethany. Simon the Leper, Lazarus, Martha and Mary of Bethany purportedly lived there. For years, racist housing covenants were in place. Because of this, the congregation and neighborhood were exclusively white until 1948.
After the landmark United States Supreme Court case Shelley v. Kraemer, Silver Lake opened to non-whites. The neighborhood became a hub of Asian-American modernism. Architects like Eugene Choy, David Hyun, Gilbert Leong and Hai Chuen Tan designed homes for Asian-American clients. They also designed homes for their own families.
Bethany Presbyterian Church extended membership to Asian Americans. Delbert E. Wong became the first Chinese American judge in the continental US. He chaired the National Conference of Christians and Jews’ Asian Pacific American Focus Program.
In 1965, Bethany Presbyterian Church became the first home of the East-West Players theater company. Actors Beulah Quo, Guy Lee, James Hong, June Kim, Makoto “Mako” Iwamatsu, Pat Li, Rae Creevey, Soon-Tek Oh and Yet Lock founded the company. Delbert E. Wong’s efforts helped to secure this location. The East-West Players moved to East Hollywood in 1972.
By 1980, the congregation was dwindling. It merged with a Korean congregation and became Bethany United Presbyterian Church. Eventually, it transformed into a completely Korean church. Even Korean Christians weren’t enough. Church services ended in the mid-2000s. Dana Hollister purchased the church around this time.
In 2008, Hollister announced plans to transform the abandoned Bethany Presbyterian Church into a boutique hotel. Hollister is a well-known bar and restaurant owner. Her properties have included Bordello/One-Eyed Gypsy, Alexander’s Brite Spot, Cliff’s Edge, Villians Tavern, 4100 Bar, the Canfield-Moreno Estate and Sunset Pacific Motel. Hollister began amassing her fortune by making and selling decorative pillows. She then parlayed that into Odalisque, an interior design company.
Adaptive reuse has been a savior for many churches. It would be nice to see Bethany Presbyterian resurrected. A few years ago, St. Ann’s Melchite Church was converted into residences. The Church of Christ in the York Valley became a live music venue.
In 2013, The Original Interactive Horror Theatre Company staged Tom Chaits’s Delusion: Masque of Mortality at Bethany Presbyterian Church. The horror theater company encountered opposition. The performance was shut down prematurely.
The Silver Lake Chorus performed in Bethany Presbyterian Church in 2015. Today, Bethany Presbyterian Church sits underutilized. It is still a handsome building. It has lots of potential as a cultural space, hotel, or something other than a semi-permanent estate sale site. The abandoned playground could make a fantastic beer garden. A conversion along the lines of Downtown’s Redbird or Glasgow’s Òran Mór would be fantastic.