WE NEED CHOIR STALLS!
St Albert the Great Priory in Irving was finished in 2002. It was built as a home for the friars who were serving the University of Dallas as profs and chaplains.
The house has 13 rooms for friars and one guest room. The kitchen was designed to be a "warming kitchen" b/c the friars used the catering service used by Holy Trinity Seminary.
The chapel (above) was designed by a commercial architect in a style very much in vogue in 2002 -- lots of natural light, no ornamentation, white/beige/tan, egalitarian arrangement of the furniture, etc. Serviceable but easily mistaken for a Quaker meeting room.
In 2005, the priory was designated as the novitiate for the province. From 2005 to 2019, we had novice classes ranging from zero to four novices and a senior community of six or seven.
Last year, we had five novices. All professed vows and moved on to the studium in St. Louis. This year we have seven novices! We are on track to have seven more next year.
In early 2022, the friars decided to renovate the kitchen and the chapel. In the kitchen, we needed appliances that did more than warm up catered food. And in the chapel, we needed choir stalls for chanting the Offices, an altar of repose for the re-centered tabernacle, and tiled floors for acoustics.
We received a generous grant to begin the renovations. But we woefully underestimated the cost of the work. What we thought was going to be a $160,000 job turned into a $320,000 job!
We are still soliciting bids for the choir stalls. . .after reducing the number of stalls and going with less expensive wood.
Work started on Nov. 1, 2023. We've been closed to the public since then, using our tiny library as a chapel.
We need around $110,000 to finish the work and reopen to the public.
You can help us out: RENOVATE.
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