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The foundation of most churches is built on spiritual faith. This one was restored on faith of a different kind: trust in another human being. Steve and Polly Revare, owners of an 1882 United Presbyterian Church in Cottonwood Falls, hired Paula Adams, a family friend and an architectural designer specializing in historic preservation, to create for them a modern second home that retained the spirit of the building's original purpose.

"We wanted to see what ideas she'd come up with," Steve says. "I'm glad we did because we wouldn't have seen the space the way she did."

What Adams physically saw was an empty shell of a building with no pews and no rooms. What her mind's eye saw was new use for a neglected space. "We're putting a historic building back into use. It takes loving hands and lots of patience," Adams says.

The church hasn't held services since the 1920s, instead being passed off for a sequence of uses, lastly as a woodworker's workshop. Everyone in the community had good intentions for it, but no one had the coffers.

It took an outsider to the aging town to make good on the intention. "We were driving around the area with a realtor looking at homes that had been redone. But when we drove by this place, I asked, "What about that?'" Steve explains of his serendipitous find.

His inspiration proved well-founded. He continues, "Most people like the way it's being used. We were on a homes tour last Christmas and 400 people walked through - that's almost half the town!"

With a green light from the Revares, Adams was free to design. She did, however, need state approval because the church comes within 500 feet of a stately French Renaissance building registered as the oldest courthouse in Kansas still in use.

The Revares remained devout on the facade, cleaning up the stones, and adding a brick porch and wrought iron light fixtures to the front. At the back of the church, a five-sided solarium, making reference to the apse, was the only addition to the building. Cutting a double wide door frame into the wall, they used the removed limestone for the fireplace.

Adams played with geometry to fit four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a living area, a kitchen and a dining room into a 1,400-square-foot space. At the time of the purchase in 2001, the Revares had two young children, but by the end of construction in 2003 they had added two more - a total of four under the age of five. Adding a second floor had become necessary, though they strove to keep the space as open as possible with a minimal 800 extra square feet. The resulting staircase became a sculptural focal point, crossing the entry like a catwalk. It bridges two small bedrooms, a surprisingly spacious full bath, and a narrow loft space that serves as a home office. The latter will prove its importance in the coming years, as both Steve and Polly work from home and will be able to spend longer periods of time in Cottonwood Falls with the right technology.

Steve, an Internet consultant and unpublished novelist, will use the loft space, while Polly, who does radio voice-over work, will use a closet as a recording studio. Using a rotated cube effect on the lower level, Adams squeezed in two normal-sized bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths near the entrance before the space opens up to a loft-like setting for the whole family.

Decorated simply with a colorful area rug and sectional couch, and a custom TV armoire that matches the shape of the windows, the room feels relaxed. A light birch kitchen, punctuated by stainless steel appliances, looks out onto the living area.

Has the remodel retained a reverent nod to its spiritual past? "It looks more like a church now than when we bought it!" Steve exclaims. "We're not trying to make it look religious but we have a few religious artifacts." Besides the structure itself, certain ecclesiastical accessories stand out. Polly's mom, who owns an antique store, helped find such fitting items as a bishop's bed with a wrought iron cross above, a baptismal font for the entry that functions as a catchall for keys, a sanctuary lamp hanging from the ceiling, and several metal crosses grouped near the staircase. The stained glass above the front door, of a contemporary design, is brand new. When the church was built - records show for $2,400 - the patrons couldn't afford to install colored glass. (They couldn't even afford to use high quality stone on all four walls of the building, thus only the two walls facing the street corner look uniform. Steve's brother-in-law Tim Hickok, a developer in Kansas City, joked, "The good Lord loves curb appeal.")

With its imperfections embraced, the church appeals to the Revares very much. "It's our idea down the road to come down here on the weekends," Steve says.

The drive - at just about two hours from their Prairie Village home - hints at the edges of the Flint Hills. The family owns some land not more than 10 minutes from their vacation home with a pond and green rolling hills, perfect for the whole family to go tromping around in - a natural playground for raising kids the old-fashioned way.

"The grass almost look like the ocean when the wind blows it in waves. You can look out and see for miles. It's so quiet, almost like a religious experience," Steve describes. It goes to show that one doesn't need stones and mortar to connect to a higher power.