architectural design News

FRANKFORT, Ky. | After 150 years, the stained-glass windows of First United Methodist Church are getting a facelift.

It's all thanks to tens of thousands of dollars in donations and a man willing to drive nearly 1,600 miles round trip to do the work.

For several years, Brian McHale, of Windows of Heaven Stained Glass of Westport, Conn., has been traveling from Connecticut to Frankfort to restore First United's 150-year-old stained-glass windows.

The project has been about a decade in the making, after the church's chairman of trustees, Paul Mauer, noticed that the windows were getting bent out of shape — literally.

"Just looking up and down the aisle, I began looking at the windows and thinking, 'You know, these (pieces) aren't vertically aligned,' " Mauer said.

"There really hadn't been anything done to the windows, that we could find, over the last 70 or 85 years, so we decided it was time to redo them."

The church looked for experienced stained glass window restorers and hired McHale in 2006.

But because of the project's estimated $125,000 price tag, restoring the windows has been on the backburner for several years.

Mauer said most of the church's attention during that time went toward building an addition, which was finished in 2006.