Friends of Swansonville acquires title to church after year-long effort

Leah Leach and Ken Park covered the latest development from Friends of Swansonville and how we inched closer to our goal for restoration. Here is an excerpt from the story:

A group formed to restore a 115-year-old church has finally acquired the title to the property.

It took a year of effort to gain a clear title last week, said Terra Coyan and Jesse Michaels, co-founders of the Friends of Swansonville, because it wasn’t known who exactly owned the church building at 11 Werner Road in Port Ludlow.

“The title has been a mystery to the community and the Jefferson County system for many years,” Michaels said.

“The original deed dates to 1905 — no record of ownership to an individual, only to an entity that has not existed for over 40 years,” that being the Christ Congregational Church, which dissolved in the 1960s, she added.

The deed to the Swansonville church hadn’t been updated since 1905. (Jessie Michaels)

Since then, the building was used by a variety of groups, but nothing was legally updated until last week, Coyan said.

Read the full article at Peninsula Daily News.