Time appears almost to have passed by the small 19th century chapel building and adjoining cemetery at 5902 Kingston Pike amid all the newer Bearden development.
But now the church might be passing time – and the busy street – by in return. Possible plans are in the works to move it to where it can be preserved even better.
A sign recently placed on the small white church building says, “This 1885 chapel for sale. Must relocate to your property/venue.” Listed is the phone number for the Cappiello real estate and property development firm, the building’s owner.
Efforts to reach Cappiello officials for more information were unsuccessful, but a 2018 Shopper News story quoted Tony Cappiello as saying he had recently bought the property. He said at the time that he had been approached in the fall of 2017 about purchasing the building by the Royal Chaplain Corps’ David Trempe, who was changing his ministry’s focus after being there for nearly 10 years.
Cappiello said he had done some remodeling work there after purchasing it and had already held special events there, with plans for more. He said the long-term plan was to rent it out to a nonprofit group, with preservation of the old church building the goal.
“I appreciate old buildings,” he said at the time. “Whenever I can, I try to save them. In this case I should be able to do that.”
The education and Sunday school wing added to the west side of the church building in later years was also leased out to at least one business for a period after his purchase.
Cappiello in 2018 also said he owned the Pelican’s SnoBalls building on the east side, a building that had formerly been a house, so it made sense to own both parcels of property next to each other on the busy street.
Whether any other plans are in the works for the site are not known. The church building dates to the 1880s and for several decades was the site of Bearden Christian Church. Not long before the Royal Chaplain Corps began using the facility, it had been the Korean Christian Church.
Although event weddings using such buildings as historic chapels have become popular in recent years, the Bearden building appeared limited in available parking on its immediate lot.
While the chapel building has been very noticeable to the numerous passengers in automobiles passing it daily, the small cemetery hidden behind it has been mostly inconspicuous. Likely the burial site of former church members, the small cemetery in the southwest corner of the lot has a couple dozen tombstones of people who died in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Among the last names on some of the markers are Abbey, Ventis, and Giezentanner.
Combined, both the cemetery and chapel seem to quietly tell a detailed story of Bearden history.
The church building and cemetery are among just a small number of local landmarks from the 19th century remaining in that part of Knoxville. Two others are the Knollwood mansion on Bearden Hill and the Lakeshore Park administration building that had formerly been part of the mental health institute there.
Those two have new uses, as does the former Marble City United Methodist Church of similar size and shape a couple of miles east on Sutherland Avenue. It was in recent years converted into an architect’s office and a coffee shop.
But the plans for the historic chapel on busy and modern Kingston Pike are still being sketched in the minds of potential users.