A historic sanctuary finds its voice again in music – Gig Harbor Now

Arts & Entertainment Community

“I knew this space wasn’t meant to sit quiet.”

When Lise Kristiansen heard a local pianist playing at a Gig Harbor taproom, amid the clatter of glasses and barroom chatter, she was struck by the music, and what she could do to support it.

She didn’t wait for the set to end. Kristiansen approached the pianist, Elijah Bossenbroek, mid-performance. His emotional, contemporary compositions, rooted in classical structure, carried a cinematic quality. A former professional pianist herself, she already had a vision.

It was time to bring music back to the old log church on the hill.

“My home was built to bring people together,” said Kristiansen, who lives in the original St. John’s Episcopal Church, which opened in 1951.

‘An acoustic masterpiece’

Perched above the harbor, just a short distance from Harbor Ridge Middle School on Fuller Street, the home still holds the character of its past life. Kristiansen describes it as “an acoustic masterpiece.”

“Even the silence carried weight,” she said.

That belief led her to open her doors for an intimate concert featuring Bossenbroek. Word spread quickly. The event, held over the weekend, reached capacity through word of mouth. Guests were asked for a $20 minimum donation, with 100 percent of proceeds going directly to the artist.

With a son who is also a working musician, and her own experience as a professional pianist, Kristiansen understands the challenges of making a living in the arts. Now a CEO and financial analyst, she volunteers as a pianist locally and serves as the Norwegian Consul for Alaska. The concert, she said, was a way to support a local musician while honoring the space’s roots as a community gathering place.

Last Saturday, March 14, a standing-room-only crowd gathered in hushed reverence as the music played. It was perhaps not unlike the congregations that once filled the hillside sanctuary decades ago.

Architectural marvel

Bossenbroek’s tall frame folded over the keys, his body swaying as if the music moved through him. Each note carried, resonating through the vertically set, locally milled timber logs, a style unique to Gig Harbor’s architectural history. That distinctive design can still be seen in several local buildings today, including the restroom at Donkey Creek Park, which is thought to have been built from leftover logs from the church’s construction.

The church itself was designed by architect Gaston C. Lance, an inventive local designer who never formally completed an architecture degree but left a lasting mark on the region.

Lance designed the Chinese Pavilion for the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition at the World’s Fair. He stayed in the area to run a carpentry shop and designed the Spanish Colonial Revival–styled Empress Theatre in downtown Gig Harbor, formerly located at 3126 Harborview Drive. He also worked briefly as an art director for a Tacoma silent film company.

The church was built largely by volunteers. After services, congregants would climb onto the roof to lay cedar shingles.

The land was donated by early Gig Harbor resident Jenny Fuller, for whom Fuller Street is named. The church closed in 1959, relocating less than a mile away.

From church to home

In the years that followed, architect William R. Reed converted the building into a residence. Reed reimagined the sanctuary into a family home while preserving elements of its original design.

His most noticeable alteration was the bell tower. He removed the original 20-foot steeple but kept the three-segment boxy structure intact. Subsequent owners introduced further changes, including the addition of a spiral staircase (now replaced with a traditional stairway) and, more recently, a dramatic expansion of the home’s signature window, now a sweeping 24-by-21-foot pane framing the harbor.

Several local structures continue to showcase Lance’s distinctive vertical log style, a hallmark of Gig Harbor architecture. The home is also featured in the 2025 book Residential Reincarnation: Western Washington by Gig Harbor author Marques Vickers.

Elijah Bossenbroek

Bossenbroek’s music stood in stark contrast to the bars and street fairs where he has performed in the past. It was also far removed from an earlier chapter of his life. He served as a United States Marine during Operation Iraqi Freedom from 1999 to 2004. While stationed in Kuwait, he played an electric keyboard during long shifts, often alongside a fellow soldier on guitar.

“It was a crazy time,” he said.

After returning home, he worked a series of jobs while coping with depression. Eventually, his parents offered him three months of wages so he could focus entirely on music. The result was his album Harmony Disarray, which led to a record deal with a New York label and a music video release. Though he later earned a degree in physical education, music remained central. Today, he earns a modest living through streaming and performs daily for audiences on TikTok.

“This space,” he said of Kristiansen’s home, pausing with a smile, “it’s beautiful.”

Bossenbroek said each performance feels new. His memory doesn’t hold onto compositions in a fixed way, so each time he plays, it becomes a fresh “creative avenue.”

At home, he practices on a keyboard with headphones so his wife, a Gig Harbor High School teacher, and their college-aged children hear only the “pounding” of keys. Bossenbroek’s inspiration comes from composer Michael Nyman and the film The Piano.

A building meant to bring people together

“It felt like it had so much history to it,” Kristiansen said of her home. She purchased the property sight unseen in 2021 during the height of the pandemic. In a time marked by isolation, she found herself in a place built for gathering. Her grand piano traveled more than 2,000 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, to rest beneath vaulted ceilings and expansive windows framing views of Mount Rainier and the harbor.

The concert ended with a standing ovation. Kristiansen handed Bossenbroek an envelope containing more than $1,200, every dollar raised by the community. He stood quietly as the applauds continued, smiling in disbelief.

In a space once filled with hymns, music had returned, different in form, but familiar in purpose.  “I think these walls are going to sing for a long, long time,” Kristiansen told the audience. The building has changed. Its walls have been reshaped, its purpose reimagined. But some things, it seems, remain.

“I knew this space wasn’t meant to sit quiet.”

For more information about Elijah Bossenbroek visit his website.

To read more about the architectural history of Fuller Street Home, read Residential Reincarnation: Western Washington Volume One by Marques Vickers.