Our Conversion at Crystal Creek

For reasons to this day truly unknown, my wife Carmen desperately wanted to buy an old country church. She thought that converting it into a yoga/Pilates studio would be the most fantastic idea. After checking out a few converted buildings she decided to start with a fresh canvas—a little church put conveniently on the market by the Catholic Parish of Murwillumbah.

We are going to Crystal Creek. Half an hour from the Gold Coast—paradise of surfers, nightclubs and skyscrapers—there is a completely different, bucolic world. Crystal Creek is nothing more than a tiny hamlet: a handful of houses spread out all over the place, herds of cows grazing lazily on green rolling hills, a crystal-clear creek trickling beside a bumpy bitumen road. Finally on a sharp corner, hidden between overgrown crepe myrtle trees, there it is: a petite, forgotten, wooden country church.

The local estate agent turns his key in a shiny silver padlock. This lock looks like the last and only investment here in the last decade. It does not match the rest—rusty roof, walls with paint coming off in big flakes, smashed windows. An army of fat rats could enter the premises through the gigantic holes in the soft cedar door.

The space inside is truly enchanted. Twelve steps by nine plus a few square metres of sacristy. Warm afternoon sunshine paints shadows on the wall. The unforgettable smell of old timber works as the final touch.

You should not expect too much architectural haute couture from a simple country church. Except for the tall arch windows and cathedral entrance door it could have been a big barn. There are no pews (they were sold at an auction a couple of months ago). On the floor one can see traces of altar cut with a saw, and the not-so-dusty shadow of a tabernacle on the wall. Later I discover the remains of three crosses on the roof.

Carmen is walking slowly on the unsteady floorboards and I can see in her eyes that only a miracle can save us now from buying this ancient ruin.

For the last few years the little church in Crystal Creek has been used for services only every fifth Sunday of the month, five times per year. The last mass was said here in August 2003 for a very limited congregation.

Parish elders were hoping in vain for serious buyers to appear with satisfying tender offers. Finally with the help of a local real estate agent (the same agency which had dealt with the land acquisition for the church a hundred years ago) they settled on their price: $300,000. In the nearby town of Murwillumbah, people are selling lovely three-bedroom cottages for the same amount.

I tell my wife I will never ever put a single cent on the plate if she pays what they ask, but my threats are obviously falling on deaf ears. Anyway, “Who puts money on the plate will always get more back, mate”, is a family version of an old Polish proverb. Very soon, after very little bargaining, we are exchanging contracts and getting the keys to a silver padlock.

As we have spent the last cent of our savings on church-shopping we have had to leave the charming bush hut we had rented for the last three years. With two trailers of goods we move in just before Christmas. A mattress lands on one side of the main nave, a small table, three chairs and wardrobe on the other. Bags, suitcases, parcels and boxes slowly fill the church space. Our two-year-old daughter Aniela, like a proper pioneer, takes over the rest of the available space, turning it into her private toy kingdom. A very contented cat sits happily in an arch window.

The very next day we go to the beach to spend our last civilised Christmas with Carmen’s family. Upon our return it is time to make a proper inventory:

Electricity: not available.

Running water: the same.

Bathroom with shower and toilet: the same.

Two-year-old baby: one piece.

Too optimistic wife: one piece.

One very contented cat: as stated above.

It is the middle of a hot Australian summer. The small esky we borrowed from Carmen’s mum is chewing through one bag of ice per day. It seems cheaper to drive ten kilometres and do our daily shopping in Murwillumbah. But that is just the beginning of a long string of surprises and adventures.

Somebody is knocking hard on the church door.

“Hi. My name is Bill. Do you have something to eat?”

Half-asleep, I look into his friendly, smiling face and think some guy from the Salvation Army has come to make sure poor squatters in an old church are not starving.

“There’s a flood coming,” says Bill, and leaves in a hurry.

A few hours later our church is on an island surrounded by rising waters with roads cut off in every direction. Flooded sugar-cane fields look like gigantic paddies. At first some stronger four-wheel-drives still get through, but finally even they back off.

We eventually learn that local flooding and occasional landslides blocking roads are regular features in this area. Locals advise us to fill our fridge and wait patiently for a couple of days till Mother Nature gets bored with inundating her stock.

Every time it happens it is amazing to see how after each flood people help each other. They fix their fences together; they look for missing cattle.

I am not sure if we have been blessed with the opportunity of purchasing a picturesque ruin, but we are definitely lucky with the quality of our neighbours. They help in any way they can. It is even a bit embarrassing to receive fresh milk or get our grass cut for free so often.

They, especially Dorothy next door, are a great source of stories connected with Crystal Creek church. Dorothy explains how hard it was to get any repairs done.

“We had only five services per year here so our church was always the last one when it came to fixing things in the parish.” One year it got so bad that one of the local parishioners, Jim Fogarty, a builder, went to the priest and asked him at least to paint the rusting roof. The priest refused. Jim said: “I am not going to put one single cent in the plate for a year but I will have this roof painted.” And he did.

Thanks to Jim there is only one single leak in the roof. Every morning after a rainy night I tip out more than half a bucket of water from the container next to our queen-size mattress.

Someone else remembers Ruby Chilcott, a descendant of the first settlers in the valley, who ran the Crystal Creek post office. She planted azaleas and gardenias beside the church—the remnants are still hanging on today. Even in her eighties she was trying to keep the church neat and tidy. She used to sit on a bench in front of her post office on the other side of the creek to keep watch on “her” church.

We are getting some water from the old rusty water tank. Two thousand litres won’t last long, so for a bath we are using a big rubber duck brought by one of Aniela’s aunties from New York and a big plastic bowl that usually serves as a horse trough.

We have to hire a portable toilet from Murwillumbah because despite all her enthusiasm for the project and her pioneer spirit Carmen has flatly refused to use any kind of bush toilet. The only sign of the old church “dunny” is a deep hole at the back of the block. Empty.

Finally, after a couple of months of burning candles at both ends we are able to switch on our first electric lamp inside.

It takes us a few months to decide what to do with our purchase. Our first idea, of buying a modest second-hand cottage and putting it somewhere in the churchyard, is abandoned. The same happens with the idea of extending around one side of the church and back sacristy after a local builder laughs off our building budget of a mere $50,000.

Another funny builder suggests that we should consider investing in a decent plate and start a Sunday collection to boost our income. That is purely sarcastic but not completely without merit. I notice that the iron peg marking our boundary is located on the very busy tourist route connecting New South Wales and Queensland. I think: maybe not a collection but a toll road. After struggling with our renovation budget for too long I am not sure if it is a joke any more.

Our midget of a budget is the main reason why the horde of possible builders soon shrinks to two. One of them, apprentice Steve, takes his Akubra off when he enters the church. Steve belonged to the local Catholic congregation. His grandmother was one of those involved in the church’s design. Unfortunately neither fact can help with negotiating their wages.

We settle on something presumably simple and viable. Luke, the boss and master builder, is happy to put up a mezzanine floor for us inside. The ground floor will be occupied by Carmen’s studio; the first floor will make our living quarters. Seven, eight weeks and you can move in, he says.

Luke and Steve put inside the church massive spotted-gum posts and beams sourced from the local sawmill. Originally we planned an internal spiral staircase, but to save space the stairs will have to be moved outside. Luke almost persuades Carmen to build a majestic, Queenslander-like, double staircase with a small veranda on top. Finally we agree that, due to our budget, constructing only half of this visionary statement will be practical and still magnificent enough.

One Monday morning both gentlemen cut in the front wall, five or six metres above ground level, a little slit. That will be the front door to our future, lofty house. One day. From below the building begins to look like one of the ancient, fortified Roman churches in Europe with this little cut perfect for shooting approaching enemies! I ask Steve if he put a shotgun in his ute today. Before starting his carpentry apprenticeship with Luke, Steve used to be a banana farmer. A shotgun was handy for killing snakes that dropped from the banana bunches.

One Sunday morning I wish without one ounce of Christian spirit to lie on the roof with a rifle and shoot the passing hoons on their roaring motorbikes. What a century ago made for a perfect location for Saint Michael’s church in Crystal Creek has become a curse. Hordes of black-leather-clad Angels, Bulldogs and other Bandidos (or maybe only ageing doctors and solicitors) slow approaching the sharp corner in front of the church. Then seeing a long stretch of straight road ahead they rev their Harleys so loud that the walls tremble and the glass shakes in the incomplete windows.

Our budget has finally collapsed.

Luke, the builder (“The best legs in the carpentry business on the whole east coast”, according to Carmen’s female friends) doesn’t really cope with arithmetic. The original cost of the veranda, $10,000, was reached yesterday, but we are not yet halfway with the staircase, and not much further with the roof over the veranda.

The same with time limits. Instead of seven weeks we are fast approaching seventeen.

Moreover, instead of getting the $7000 grant for first home buyers, Carmen has received an exasperating letter from an official in the Sydney office informing us that we didn’t purchase a home so therefore we are not eligible for a grant.

Just to make sure I am not going nuts I look up the dictionary. The Macquarie kindly informs me that a church is: “an edifice for public Christian worship”. Our little country church is not much of an “edifice” (“a building, especially one of large size or imposing appearance”) for sure, and not much worshipping is happening here right now. I check as well the definition of home: “a house or other shelter that is the fixed residence of a person, family, or a household; a place of one’s domestic affections …” I copy out the words of dictionary wisdom, confirm that there is no registered congregation at our address, and seal it with lots of affection in an envelope.

Carmen says I will make myself a laughing stock in Sydney. I reply that nothing beats the jokes of bureaucratic clowns.

Our builders cannot continue without seeing more money. I understand. Steve has a very big (eight kids and one more on the way) Catholic indeed family, and “God bless!” is not adequate currency for paying bills.

It is my turn to finish this Opus Dei. I start with the basic skill of holding a hammer and try to use it without hitting my fingers too often. A few months on and I am ready to pass apprentice tests in everything. I enjoy working with timber, so carpentry would be my choice. I like playing with skirting, all the finishing touches, installing doors and windows. The biggest challenge, however, is to scrape all the old peeling paint off the outside walls. We get a quote from a local tradesman for $20,000 to do the job. We can’t afford it, so I invest fifty cents to buy a cheap face mask and ninety dollars for a good quality grinder.

One of the neighbours warns me about lead. The church was painted many years ago and the paint probably contained this unpleasant ingredient. So I put on two cheap masks. I wrap an old T-shirt and an old flannelette shirt around my head. I must look pretty wild, like a jihad warrior, because tourists asking their way to nearby Nimbin, Australia’s hippie capital, leave the premises at speed.

Carmen is due to deliver our second baby on February 17 at seven in the morning. I finish putting down floor panels late at night on February 16. Our little church loft is looking more homely now.

A few bits of furniture, a few final touches of paint and we can move in. There are still plenty of temporary solutions. I have to put up curtains instead of inside doors. No company in Australia makes glass interior doors. Without light our little bedrooms would feel like oversized coffins.

After a few days of rest to celebrate the arrival of Maya Teresa I start on the next project—polishing the floor downstairs for the future yoga/Pilates studio. After a few minutes of work I witness a miracle. While the sander is scraping a few decades of dirt, mud and decay, the ugly brown boards are slowly recovering their natural, warm, honey colour. Hundred-year-old teak in all its original glory! Now I can believe parish chronicles that after being polished by the eighty-year-old Ruby Chilcott, the Crystal Creek church floor was shining like the biblical “purest snow”.

I am laboriously getting dirt out from between the floorboards. Suddenly my blood pressure goes up. There is something more there than dust. It is another miracle—a little silver coin. Is it the answer to a prayer to pay off our mounting debts faster?

I run upstairs to check the internet. According to a numismatic website, a threepenny coin garnished with the profile of King George V, dated 1934, will bring us an extra … fifty contemporary cents. I check the website further and feel almost sorry for myself. Why didn’t one of local farmers toss on the plate (and miss) a gold krugerrand or golden dollar with kookaburra? The last one, worth at the moment at least $20,000, would have significantly lifted our budget.

Half a year later we have a septic system and a working toilet upstairs. Another few months of saving and new shining sheets replace the old rusty iron on the roof. We can safely collect our rain water for drinking.

Locals commend our efforts. They feel generally content that someone has taken on the role of saviour of their ruined church. Sunday tourists are slowing down on our corner. Many stop to take photos (unfortunately they do not put anything on a plate).

A couple of our least-favourites—bloody noisy bikers—stop as well. They take off their helmets and pass their compliments to my visiting mother-in-law, who is taking her mid-morning stroll on the veranda. “Thank you very much. That’s very kind of you,” she says, touched by their admiring comments.

I have now spent two years running around with every possible tool. I have done drilling, sawing, chiselling, hammering … I got mild lead poisoning while scraping old paint off the walls. I suffered all the stress because our funds ran out too quickly. Properly addressed words of acknowledgment would be too much to expect! God Bless Hells Angels!

Most of the churches bought by private investors are either open to the public as restaurants or boutique accommodation or turned into very private homes.

“How long would you like to be a tourist attraction?” asks Treni. “Some days we couldn’t keep our doors shut. Someone was married here, someone baptised a child. People were coming to check on the progress of renovation.”

Treni and her husband Marcel purchased another country church in Tyalgum from the same Catholic Parish of Murwillumbah. After a while they got tired of visitors prying into their personal space. Moreover, Marcel, who has been in the floor-sanding business for many years, has done an excellent job polishing the amazing red cedar boards in their new home and rightly takes pride in the final outcome.

“Most of the people did not even bother taking their shoes off,” says Treni. So finally they closed their doors to visitors.

There are hundreds of different people treading the floor of Crystal Creek church. Carmen has started her yoga and Pilates classes. Little kids pop in on Saturday mornings for ballet. Once a week members of the local co-op exchange their goods, weighing what they bought wholesale. There has been a Mother’s Day celebration, an organic cooking demo, gardening workshops, a mini exhibition of local artists. Some budding talents have put their skills on display in a series of low-key performances. One day Ari, an older man of Jewish-Hungarian descent, comes from a nearby village to ask if he can to use the space for Sanskrit chants with his friends.

The old church is once again a living part of the local community.