One highlight of David Beebe and John Nova Lomax’s Richmond Ave. walking tour mentioned here last week was Lomax’s description of this strange vision on the #25 bus route to Mission Bend:
Towards the end of the line, the bus turned left off Richmond and into a weird suburban residential neighborhood. Ashford Point, the street we were on, was bisected by a greenspace in which there was a sunken trail, which ducked under the streets in little tunnels.
And then there was… this thing, this sprawling empty complex, this five-story square building topped by a 40-foot golden geodesic dome, flanked by two smaller domes. Two exterior staircases flanked these orbs – the overall effect was something like a sawed-off Mayan temple of the sun.
The whole compound was ringed by an iron fence, and then there was another huge fence around the entry to the building. The vast parking lot was empty, and there were no signs nor apparently even a mailbox. It was completely surreal. Neither Beebe nor I had a clue what it was – Beebe thought it might be the private residence of a very weird Arab sheik. I thought at first that it might be a mosque, but it didn’t look much like one closer up.
After the jump: What was it?
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Comment of the Day: There’s Black Gold in Them Thar Church!
“I was involved 7 years ago to save the old church but it was a battle then. The people of Immanuel don’t know what they have. They want to demo the church so they can move on to phase three . . . of their master plan. Problem is they don’t have enough money to finish phase two much less start phase three. One of the reasons, I was told by a trustee, that they are demoing the bldg. now is that a couple of their old members died and left them some money . . . He went on to say that one of the [deceased] left them some oil well money not much he said but just enough to maybe pay the light bill each month. They have an oil well over there right now and don’t even know it. Yea it will take money and effort but I guarentee every girl in the Heights would love to get married in that old beautiful church. . . . The church is not rotten as some say. that thing is solid, some remodel work and that Bldg. could be a gold mine for the church. If they do tear it down it will be a shame.” [Mike Batterson, commenting on Can This Lutheran Church Be Saved?]