By Gloria Stravelli
HOLMDEL – Development is changing the profile of communities, making preservation of local historical structures ever more important, according to members of the Holmdel Historical Society.
“To me, it’s difficult to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you come from,” said Art Heath, historian for the society.
Peter Maneri, president of the society, concurred. “Every other day in every town in Monmouth County and the country, they’re pulling down homes, razing them,” Maneri said. “And we don’t know what our past is and these are beautiful structures. It impacts the integrity and look of the town as well.”
“We don’t want these places to be forgotten, we want people to know about and to realize there’s a very rich history here in Holmdel.”
Which is why the society is about to resume work on the preservation of St. Catharine of Genoa Church. The small church building on Stillwell Road dates to 1879 and was the first Catholic Church in Holmdel. Heath said it was built to serve the area’s Irish immigrants.
According to the historical society website, Rev. Michael L. Glennon oversaw the building of St. Catharine of Genoa Church on a donated quarter-acre parcel on Stillwell Road beginning in February 1879. Nine months later, the church was dedicated. In May 1975, the Archdiocese of Trenton donated the church, which was no longer in use, to the Holmdel Historical Society for $1. The small church building now serves as the society’s official headquarters and museum.
“Many people around here, their parents and grandparents attended that church,” said Heath.
Restoration of St. Catharine of Genoa was underway until COVID-19 brought the project to a halt.
“We lost two years to the pandemic,” Maneri said.
With the advent of spring and easing of restrictions, members of the historical society are ready to resume work on the vestibule of the small church that served the Catholic community here for close to 100 years.
“Work will be ongoing,” said Rhonda Beck, treasurer of the historical society. “The vision is that within a year, possibly, the church will be a museum and will be open to the public to view the collection of artifacts and for the historical society to have a meeting place.”
In addition, she said, they would rent the space for events to create a revenue source.
Maneri said the society is hoping to have St. Catharine of Genoa included in other local events as well.
“We’d like to get it on the route for the county’s Weekend in Old Monmouth,” he said. “It will be the first weekend in May and Dr. Cooke’s Medical Office (another historical structure owned and maintained by the society) will be open to the public at that time. We’re also participating in the Earth Day Fest at Bayonet Farm.”
Maneri estimates that $100,000 is needed to restore the church. He estimates the current amount of funding available for the restoration is at about $6,000. Donations have come from Holmdel Fire Company No. 1, Advisors Mortgage, the Monmouth County Historical Commission, Holmdel Township, the Maneri family and individual donors.
Asked where the church is in the restoration process, Maneri said some work has been done.
The process of restoring St. Catharine’s began in 2017 with sandblasting of the exterior of the small church, which seats 100. That work revealed a board-and-batten exterior, which has since been sanded and painted. According to the society’s website, a structural engineer found the undercarriage of the church building to be sound.
Remaining work to be done includes carpentry; installing plexiglass over the stained glass windows; repair or removal of the slate roof; and restoration of the wood floor.
Maneri believes the roof is causing the building to be canted.
“A slate roof was installed over a cedar shake roof,” he explained. “My guess is that became too heavy and that’s why the church is racked. It isn’t square up top.” He hopes that when the slate roof is removed they can replace it with a lighter one.
A long list of priorities includes removing the linoleum floor, refinishing the floors and painting the walls in the original color, all work delayed due to COVID.
According to Heath, the society has made restoration of the church a priority for the past decade. While the church building has been used mainly for the storage of artifacts, he said, the decision was made to open the church building up to the public again.
The society also maintains Dr. Cooke’s Medical Office in Holmdel, dating to 1823, which was relocated to the site next to the Village School on McCampbell Road.
Beck noted the society is working simultaneously on the office.
“When we open Dr. Cooke’s Office on the Weekend in Old Monmouth we have a lot of people come through who are very interested,” said Heath. “And we hear them say, ‘I passed here a hundred times and I never knew what it was.’
“So now we are able to open it up and we can explain exactly what it was. That’s what we want to do with the church,” he said. “We want to be able to have folks come in and explain to them the history of the church.”
Heath said that visiting a historical site can often lead people to become more interested in what life was like for earlier generations.
When Dr. Cooke’s Office was placed on the Village School grounds, the students toured the building.
“You could see the excitement in their eyes,” said Beck. “One little girl was looking it up and saw her house in the Holmdel history series.”
According to Beck, the priority now is to resume work on St. Catharine of Genoa Church.
“We need volunteers, workers and donations of supplies,” she said.
For more information, visit holmdelhistoricalsociety.org.
The article originally appeared in the March 17 – 23, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
