Scott Brunson never met the Reverend Jack, but he has learned a lot about the late Scottsdale minister.
Brunson, a developer, owns the former Brotherhood of Man Desert Chapel at 4714 N. 68th Place,which he has renovated and is marketing as a residential property.
It is Brunson’s first church conversion. . Brunson is living in the parsonage until it sells.
“I’ve always got my eyes open for good opportunities. I didn’t see any problem with doing that. Certainly, before I knocked down the steeple, I talked to God about it. He was just fine with it,” Brunson said.
The Rev. Jack Edward Sylvester died in February 2006 at the age of 84. Sylvester not only preached at the chapel, which dates back to the 1960s, but married untold numbers of couples there. In fact, with its country white steeple, park-like green lawn and citrus tree-dotted grounds, the chapel was a popular wedding destination. It also served as an election polling place over the years.
Following Sylvester’s death, the property, which sits on two-thirds of an acre near 68th Street and Highland Avenue, eventually was foreclosed. Brunson, who owns Monterrey Group LLC, bought it on the first day of a foreclosure sale.
“We’ve done in the area of 113 condos and six homes (in Arizona) and then a number of properties in California as well,” Brunson said.
Brunson decided to market the property as residential, which meant removing any vestige of its former use to comply with city rules.
“We had to definitely pull away any indication that it was a church by taking out the steeple, by removing the pews. The city came in to inspect it to make it sure it longer would be a church,” Brunson said.
Brunson said the rotted steeple could not be saved, but he donated the chapel pews to Goodwill. Brunson also found a box containing about 10,000 sermons, but threw them away.
“I really wished I would have saved them, but I just didn’t,” Brunson said.
The chapel is now an approximately 2,600-square-foot home with three bedrooms and two baths plus a two-car garage.
The parsonage where Sylvester and his family lived is more than 3,000 square feet, with three bedrooms, two baths, a two-car garage and swimming pool
“This was an extensive gut renovation. This was not just a patch and paint,” Brunson said. He declined to quote a figure, but said his investment has been extensive.
Brunson also removed 29 diseased citrus trees, which opened up a once-blocked view of Camelback Mountain.
The sales price for both homes together (main house/guest house setup) is $999,000. They also can be bought separately – the parsonage house for $599,000; the chapel house for $430,000.
If someone wanted to buy the entire property and reuse it as a church, they could under the existing zoning, Brunson said. In fact, shortly after buying the property, Brunson received an offer from the sexually oriented Phoenix Goddess Temple. The temple, operating out of a home near 68th Street and Exeter Boulevard, caught the attention of both neighbors and Scottsdale police.
“They put in an offer at $980,000. I did not accept the offer at the time that they put it in,” Brunson said.
He has had subsequent inquiries from the temple about its offer, but has declined.
Brunson believes the property will sell even in the current tough real estate market. He said renovating it has been great fun. And he got to know its former owner through the stories he has heard from neighbors and visitors.
“I must have talked to 20 people so far that got married in that church, or remarried in the church,” Brunson said.
