Green Hills to Host Old St. Peters

St. Peter's Episcopal Church of San Pedro held its first service on Easter Sunday, 1884.

In the 127 years since, the church has been picked up and moved twice, lost its steeple, and suffered neglect and vandalism. Its stained glass windows were shot at and broken, and the redwood pulpit carved in the shape of an angel was stolen. 

However, the small church — only 21 feet wide and 60 feet long — is about to find a new home in Rancho Palos Verdes.

“It’s a shame that we allowed such a treasure of San Pedro to fall into such disrepair,” Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn said last fall.

Hahn helped broker the deal between the city of Los Angeles, which has owned the historic church since 1956, and of Rancho Palos Verdes.

St. Peters Episcopal was the first church in San Pedro. For several years the church was shared with other denominations that didn't have their own churches in the area.

Originally, it stood on Beacon Street between 2nd and 3rd, right next to the harbor. In 1904 the church moved to 10th and Mesa — that’s when the steeple was damaged and a belfry built to replace it.

In the 1950s, a new, bigger church for the congregation was built, so the old church was moved to the Harbor View Cemetery at 24th and Grand. Los Angeles City Recreation and Parks took over its maintenance. The church hosted weddings, parties, and musical theater, but eventually fell victim to vandalism and disuse.

“We saw something that is treasured in San Pedro being destroyed, and we wanted to bring it here to have a new life,” said John Resich, chairman of the Board of Green Hills Memorial Park.  

The church has all its pews, but other items, like the pulpit and candelabra, have been stolen throughout the years.

“They’re probably sitting in someone’s house or garden or something,” Resich said.

He’d particularly like to see the redwood pulpit returned. Carved by men more used to building ships than churches, the pulpit's pedestal takes the form of a buxom, winged angel.

From the start, the Green Hills Board of Directors realized restoring St. Peters could cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but didn’t balk.

“We believe that our obligation is to all the people in the harbor community,” Resich said. “We felt that it would be a tremendous asset to have it moved to Green Hills and allow community members to use it again.”

Right now, the church’s stained glass windows are being painstakingly restored by Art Glass by Straubs. Other restoration work will have to wait until the building is transported to its new home.

The church will likely be moved in the middle of the night. Green Hills has contracted with movers who will remove the roof and belfry and transport the church in two pieces from its current location in San Pedro's Harbor View Memorial Cemetery. 

“It’s a darling little church,” said Lydia Jewell, who lives near the old San Pedro cemetery.

She said no one’s broken into or vandalized the building in the past year.

“I’m gonna miss it,” she smiled, but she’s glad it will be in a place “where it will really be appreciated.”