After 75 years of ownership, members of Central Lutheran Church have sold their Northeast Portland property, including a building designed by modernist architect Pietro Belluschi, to the Portland Youth Philharmonic for $1.5 million.
The 1950 building, recognized for its acoustical qualities, will be used as a music education center.
Historians believe this is the first of the 42 Belluschi-designed churches and synagogues to be sold and renovated for an alternative use. The late architect also designed the 1954 Central Lutheran Church in Eugene, which is not part of the sale.
The Portland church and parish hall, a venerated gathering place for worshippers and community groups, sits on a 0.57-acre, corner lot at 1820 N.E. 21st Ave. in the Irvington Historic District.
The asking price was $3.5 million. An offer was received almost a year ago, and the sale closed Oct. 29.
The purchase was completed with support from the Irvington Community Association and Central Lutheran Church.
Church member and board representative Chris Bekemeier said in a news release the congregation is “so happy that our building will be cared for, loved and once again filled with joy, music and children.”
The purchase is historic in another way: This is the first permanent home for the Portland Youth Philharmonic, the nation’s oldest continuously operating youth orchestra.
Since it was founded by Irvington music teacher Mary V. Dodge in 1924, the nonprofit has trained thousands of young musicians and held performances in rented rehearsal spaces across the city.
Intensive ensemble training methods established by the Portland organization became the prototype for youth orchestras across the country, according to portlandyouthphil.org. David Hattner, musical director since 2008, is the fifth conductor in the orchestra’s history.
Architects, consultants and community partners are working with the Portland Youth Philharmonic to plan rehearsal and performance spaces, a music library and other improvements before the building can open to students and the public in 2026.
The church is a good candidate to be remade into a music center. Belluschi was praised for his minimal ornamentation and emphasis on structure and function to create Central Lutheran Church’s optimal immersive acoustical experience.
Pietro Belluschi’s son, Portland architect Anthony Belluschi, said that his late father “would be very pleased that dedicated members of Central Lutheran, neighbors and the architecture community were committed to finding the highest and best use for this church building.”
He added that the Portland Youth Philharmonic using Central Lutheran Church to perform “would be received with enthusiasm by my father.”
The sanctuary’s resonance will provide an ideal environment for large ensemble rehearsals, sectionals and chamber performances once upgrades are complete, said the organization.
“The work ahead is significant,” said Noreen Murdock, Portland Youth Philharmonic executive director. “But this is a remarkable opportunity to create an excellent space for music education and performance while preserving a beautiful and important structure.”
She said young musicians will benefit from rehearsing in acoustically treated rooms rather than school cafeterias, and build community among themselves and their parents by having a place to gather and visit before and during rehearsals.
People interested in learning about ways to help the nonprofit organization can contact Murdock at noreen@portlandyouthphil.org.
Church history
Selling a religious property is not unprecedented. Many churches have been decommissioned — called the act of deconsecration or secularization — and repurposed as housing, community gathering places and event venues.
There are 1,364 places of worship currently listed for sale in the United States on the online marketplace Crexi.
None of the religious structures on the market, however, is as famous as the Central Lutheran Church designed by Pietro Belluschi, the only Oregonian to receive both the National Medal of Arts for his lifetime achievements and the American Institute of Architects’ highest honor, the Gold Medal.
Over his long career, before he died in Portland at age 94 in 1994, Belluschi designed light-filled modern homes, office towers and ecclesiastical buildings across the United States that were praised for their elegantly spare aesthetic.
Belluschi’s innovative features in Central Lutheran Church impacted the evolution of modern church architecture in America, say modern architecture experts at Docomomo US/Oregon.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) ranked Central Lutheran Church in Portland, with its graceful blending of Pacific Northwest modern, Japanese and Nordic aesthetics, as one of the top four churches built in the United States during the association’s first 100 years.
The building is listed in the Oregon Registry of Historic Places.
As one of the originators of the Pacific Northwest modernism style starting in the 1930s, Pietro Belluschi employed native wood, rough stone and glass for practical as well as passionate reasons. Natural materials are a reflection of a larger world, he said.
By removing unnecessary adornments, he revealed the purity of a form. Richness was added, he said, by “the judicious use of such intangibles as space, light, texture and color.”
Belluschi’s first churches and chapels, designed from 1936 to 1955, were in the Pacific Northwest: Portland, Silverton, Eugene and Cottage Grove in Oregon and Seattle, Washington.
In 2024, Restore Oregon, the statewide preservation organization, offered a tour of Belluschi’s churches to highlight his intentional departure from 19th and early 20th century church design. Belluschi set “a new standard for architectural aesthetics,” said Nicole Possert, executive director for Restore Oregon.
In 1951, at the height of his influence, Belluschi moved away from his Portland-based practice to become dean of architecture and urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He continued, however, to design and consult on spiritual spaces and major projects such as the Juilliard School of Music and MetLife (Pan Am) Building, both in New York City, and the Bank of America World Headquarters and St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco.
The main entrance to Central Lutheran Church is under a curved-roof wooden gateway. To the left is the church, with six laminated arches spanning the 44-foot-long nave to a semicircular apse. To the right, is the Fellowship Room. The reproduced bell tower is made of stacked, slatted wood boxes.
The modern Northwest-style exterior of textured brick is sophisticatedly paired with different types of stained wood siding. Board-and-batten siding was used on exterior classroom walls while a smooth, horizontal tongue-and-groove siding was installed on exterior kitchen walls.
In the 1992 book, “Spiritual Space: The Religious Architecture of Pietro Belluschi,” author Meredith L. Clausen quotes Belluschi as telling the 1,000 members of the Central Lutheran congregation: “A church is individual for each congregation, not just a shelter.”
Members of the church hired Belluschi and funded the construction of the 1950 building, and have paid millions over time to seismically reinforce the building and make it more accessible to people with physical limitations.
Bill Tripp, whose Portland firm William C. Tripp Architect designed the building improvements and safety renovations, said Central Lutheran’s congregation deserves accolades for taking remarkably good care of the building.
“This congregation has sacrificed and given the city of Portland a real gem,” Tripp told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Tripp said the building is “extraordinary because of Belluschi’s genius” to create a sacred space that glows when bathed in light, evoking “a transcendent experience,” alongside a well-designed parish hall with offices and meeting spaces.
Tripp particularly appreciates the chancel area around the altar and the curved wood screened reredos with an embedded gold-leaf cross.
“And the acoustics are amazing,” he said. “Central is a great performance space” for fellowship, and it has been used for community music and movement classes as well as PDX Vox a cappella singing and Portland Gay Men’s Chorus rehearsals.
The sanctuary alone can accommodate 500 people.
Before the pandemic temporarily shut churches and other venues in early 2020, Central Lutheran Church ran a successful income-producing community center. More than 45 groups a week used the parish hall’s performance and classroom spaces.
In October 2023, church members voted to sell the property, saying that they could no longer afford the “high level of care, energy and financial investment” to maintain the historic facility.
Other factors included the congregation’s shrinking size, declining donations and loss of rental income.
The building is listed on Portland’s Historic Resource Inventory, which restricts certain alteration, addition, new construction, demolition and relocation. To avoid facing fines in 2009, the church had to duplicate the damaged tower and cross that had been removed.
The sale of the property took nearly 12 months from accepted offer to closing, but both parties “were committed every step of the way,“ said commercial real estate adviser Andy Stewart of Colliers International, who represented the congregation in the transaction with broker Mike Holzgang.
Holzgang, also of Colliers International, said, “It is a blessing to know as the Portland Youth Philharmonic continues to serve children and their families they will also be stewarding Pietro Belluschi’s masterpiece.”
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