A historic church in downtown Bucksport has been sold after years of deteriorating conditions led the town to tell the clock collector who owned it to fix the building or prepare to tear it down.
Steven McCurdy, the owner of a neighboring property on Franklin St., bought the former Methodist church, according to documents filed Friday in the Hancock County Registry of Deeds. He’s talked with the town about plans to restore the structure.
The town is taking the property off its violation list, and the new owner could preserve what multiple parties have described as an impressive building worth salvaging. It has potential to mark a new chapter for the historic building at a time when old churches across the region are being reused amid dwindling congregations.
McCurdy didn’t return a request for comment on his plans, but has spoken with the town about cleaning the property, stabilizing the structure and restoring it, according to Code Enforcement Officer Luke Chiavelli.
Hugh Sinclair, an antique clock dealer in Ontario, bought the almost 190-year-old church from the Bucksport United Methodist Church in 2019. The congregation moved to a newer building nearby, the former fitness center for Verso paper mill workers, in the face of expensive repairs to its longtime home. The Franklin St. church was once one of three in town, staffed by a now-defunct local Methodist seminary.
Sinclair purchased it to remove its old clock mechanism, Chiavelli previously said. The clock in the church tower and its spire have disappeared, but the building has been vacant and the grounds overgrown.
Conditions led the town to send Sinclair a notice of violation earlier this year instructing him to repair the church or start making plans to tear it down. The letter listed code violations that included mold, structural issues, water intrusion, bad plumbing and a pest infestation.
Sinclair told town officials in March that he was seeking a buyer for the property.
Last week, he sold the church to McCurdy and Company LLC, with a mailing address in the Washington County town of Whiting also owned by Steven McCurdy, according to deed and municipal tax documents. A sale price is not included; the property was not publicly listed.
The church also recorded a release of a deed restriction that said the lot could only be used for building a Methodist meeting house for the use of a local congregation.
Chiavelli previously said the violation letter was intended to start a conversation with Sinclair about taking action on options for the property.
Dick Campbell, a developer from neighboring Orrington, had wanted for years to turn the church into up to 16 one-bedroom apartments but said a lack of parking spaces made that impossible unless the town dedicated spots in a nearby lot to the building.
To rehabilitate it, Sinclair would have needed to “secure the building, retain qualified professionals to assess and stabilize the structure, eliminate water intrusion and repair failed plumbing systems, remediate mold, rot and pest infestation, and bring the building into compliance with … the town code,” Chiavelli wrote in a memo earlier this year.
It will now be taken off the town violation list, according to a memo he wrote to the town council this week.
The building was not in immediate danger of collapsing, Chiavelli told the Bangor Daily News in February, but needed major structural work and was inhabited by racoons.
“It’s pretty impressive,” he said then. “It would be a shame for it to be torn down.”
