Restoring a beautiful community landmark
On December 13 2020 our heritage status building suffered an unsolved arson attack.
The St Stephen’s team are committed to restoring the beauty of our church building.
In this time, when heritage buildings are at greater risk of being leveled, we welcome any words of encouragement and/ or donations to help us complete this project.
All donations are tax deductable and may be paid directly into our restoration account or via stripe here: https://www.ststephensponsonby.org.nz/donation
Update August 2024
We are about to start work on phase two of the rebuild, which includes rebuilding the steeple, strengthening the southern wall of the church, and completing repairs to the church interior.
The steeple was not fire-damaged but requires strengthening due to its age. Most of the structural integrity of the steeple has been affected by the elements over 140 years. The southern wall requires strengthening and this work will conclude the exterior rebuild.
The planned interior work will reinstate the internal architecture and character and will include improved lighting, heating, emergency lighting, security cameras and a fire surveillance system.
At this stage we do not have all the funding to complete this work, so we are selling the church manse in Pt Chevalier to reduce our funding shortfall.
Throughout the rebuild the Class B heritage status of the church has been central to our decisions, and this will continue with the remaining work. However, for the interior, some aspects of the rebuild may be delayed as funding means we have to juggle what is done and when. After three and a half years the interior work will focus first on the “need-to-haves” compared to the “nice-to-have.” Replacing the tin ceiling in the church is one example of these items.
The third and final phase of the project relates to repairing the church organ which was water damaged while the fire service extinguished the fire.
The church organ was originally installed in 1910 and was partially refurbished two years before the fire.
The congregation and other groups continue to meet every week in the back or middle hall. Funding the rebuild has been difficult due to rising building costs and covid, and the economic downturn has made it hard to raise the grant funding required to complete the rebuild.
We need approximately $300k to repair the church organ so if you can help us with our funding, we would appreciate hearing from you at or you can donate to the rebuild if you wish.
