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The historic Saint Leo Abbey has cracks in its walls and deteriorating stained-glass windows.
By CHASE SQUIRES
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 20, 2001
SAINT LEO -- It may take a partnership of church and state to protect some of east Pasco's history and art.
At Saint Leo Abbey, perched amid orange groves and overlooking Lake Jovita, priests and monks are asking politicians and residents to help them win a historic preservation grant that could help preserve fragile artwork steeped in local lore.
The abbey is working against a May 25 deadline to apply for a $250,000 state historic preservation grant that would advance a $1-million effort to shore up the sandstone church, cracking after years of settling in the area's sandy soil.
Although damage to the hand-crafted stone walls is troubling, Father Paul Romfh said, more pressing is the need to protect the church's stained-glass windows, created for the church by renowned Zephyrhills artist Karl Mueller in the 1940s.
"We thought we had solved the problem in 1995," Romfh said. "We replaced the roof, but when it rained, we still found water on the floor. We learned it was the walls that were leaking. There are actual cracks in the walls."
The church is special both for its historic value and its place in the Catholic faith as one of only two consecrated churches in the state dedicated solely for worship, Romfh said.
Church architecture specialist Jeffrey Hole of Sarasota is overseeing the effort, part of a $3.5-million capital drive to preserve both the church and the abbey residence hall.
Without help, the church walls will get worse, he said. And without the money to pull the walls back together with heavy iron staples, the windows don't have a chance.
"It's an incredibly historic resource that's tucked away in the hills of Central Florida," Hole said. "If you really stop and think, it's a wonderful tribute to a handful of monks who came down here in the 1800s and really built something with their bare hands in what was really the middle of nowhere."
Construction of the residence and church involved a tremendous amount of dedication, local historian Eddie Herrmann said. The monks persevered when problems arose at every step.
When they needed lumber, they cut and milled local cedar trees. When they couldn't find the stone they needed for the altar and archways, they traded oranges they grew to a monastery in Indiana that ran a quarry, earning the church the title, "The church that orange juice built."
And when they needed bricks, Hole said, the monks bought a brickmaking machine and learned to make their own.
Herrmann said the church became a key part of east Pasco life even before it was finished. During World War II, when prisoners of war were housed locally, German prisoners were brought to the church for Christmas and Easter services, and locals who remember still remark how the prisoners' rendition of Silent Night in German united them for a moment of peace in a time of war.
The church remains important for locals. Saint Leo Town Commissioner Richard Christmas this month instructed town planners as they write a cellular telephone tower ordinance to order that no tower go higher than the peak of the abbey church.
But the windows endure both as history and art, Hole said.
Mueller's work is known worldwide for its beauty and craftsmanship, Hole said.
Herrmann's book, The Historic Places of Pasco County, recounts how Mueller came to America from Germany in 1912 and became known for his skill. When he moved to Zephyrhills from New York in 1952, he took on the abbey church project, designing a series of religious-themed windows in the old art of glass dyeing and lead panels.
Mueller was 83 when he died in 1971.
Romfh said state law allows grant money to be used only for exterior repairs on historic structures. If the abbey lands the $250,000 grant it needs, it still will have to raise the $750,000 it needs for the interior restoration as well as the $2.5-million sought to restore the residence hall next door.
"Is it worth it? Yes," Hole said. "Could you build something new there? You could, but it would never have the same character, the same craftsmanship, the same history. It won't be an easy project. It's a labor of love."