Naturally.

Salem United Church of Christ in Doylestown honored members of 50 years or more at a dinner on May 16 [1999]. Attending were Edna Ott, Mina Chubb, Florence Doelp, Betty Kelly, Milt Rutherford, Martha Twining, Jean Rutherford, Mary J. Gana, Gina Lewis, Anna Shaddinger, Amy Fabian, Lorraine Horvath, Ella Stevens, Ethel Diehl, Peg Smith, Warren Shaddinger, Anna Vasey, Alma Hoyt, Jeanne DeLong, Elizabeth Miller, Nick Chubb, Rose Marie Opdyke, Gloria VanArtsdalen, Doris Lee, Lorraine Kriebel, Grace M. Moyer, Bert Lambert, Bill Sickel, Viola Sickel, Peg Emerson, Dan Emerson, Lee Whitten, Bob Heacock, Elizabeth Boudreau, Martha Skoog, Doris Crouthamel, Herb Ott, Dean Schleicher, Clyde Hager, Norman Kepler, Warren VanArtsdalen, Hillborn Darlington, Ed Miller, John Homer, Jean Rimmer, Lorraine Meyers, Harold Meyers, and the Rev. James Servey. (Click the image for a larger view.)

I have no clue why I assumed Salem United Church of Christ's parsonage building would have been down the street from the church ... next to a totally different church.  It was located (naturally) beside Salem Church.

Naturally.

Anyway, in 1982 the building was no longer used as a parsonage and was occupied by a very lucky and probably very nervous tenant.

On June 30, 1982 the congregation of the Doylestown Borough church settled its 29-year debate by voting 169 to 160 to demolish the Queen Anne style parsonage at 186 East Court Street.

The congregation had debated razing the parsonage on and off since 1953.

James Michener called the 1887 building "old and lovely" and urged the church to let the structure stand. A well-known Doylestown architectural firm offered to donate its services in studying ways to preserve it. Neighbors raised an estimated $20,000 to save it.

Alas, it wasn't enough. The years leading up to the demolition were packed with church, borough, and even county drama as parishoners butted heads with neighbors, neighbors butted heads with borough officials, and everyone else butted heads with each other. People sued.

Doylestown Borough's historical district was even extended past the parsonage just months before the final vote, but since the application to raze the building had been made before the district was expanded, the zoning change didn't help.

"(Razing the building) may be a loss to the neighbor's eyes, but to us it could enhance the aesthetic and marketable value of our property," Pastor W. Lee Lawhead observed. "Renovation and renting it would be too costly, and selling it would mean we lost control of the property."

At the time of demolition, the church's plans were to leave the site as a "landscaped lot" and, going by Google Maps, it looks like that's what they did.

See?