A mom of 2 converted a 1900s chapel into a cozy, 4-bedroom home for her family. After 24 years, she’s putting it on the market for $3.72 million — see inside.

“Since I was living in a converted warehouse with six-meter ceilings, I knew I wanted another unusual space with high ceilings,” Prendeville, a 67-year-old interior designer, told Insider. “I didn’t want to just buy an ordinary house or a flat.”

By coincidence, a neighbor had just sold her place and recommended Prendeville a real-estate agency.

“I told my realtor that I was looking for a school, a warehouse, a factory, a water tower, or even a church if he had one,” Prendeville said. As it turned out, her realtor knew of two churches that were looking for new owners.

She didn’t like the first church they visited, but the second one was perfect. “My husband and I had planned to spend the whole summer looking for somewhere new to live, and we found it on day one,” she added.

The chapel in Camberwell, South London, used to be a part of a teacher’s training college in the early 1900s known as the St. Gabriels College, Prendeville said.

“In 1970s England, it was decided that there were too many teachers being trained for too few available jobs. Many teacher training colleges were closed down, including this one, so Goldsmiths College of Art took over the building,” Prendeville said.

The college remained on the premises up until the early ’90s, she said. After it moved out, the property was sold to a developer who turned the building into an apartment complex known as St. Gabriels Manor.

“When they got to the chapel, they wanted to divide it into four flats. But English Heritage — an organization dedicated to building conservation — stopped them because of the building’s historical significance,” she said.

In a twist of events, the lawyer that the developers hired to fight their case ended up buying the chapel from them instead — and he was the owner who eventually sold the property to her two years later, Prendeville added.

In the UK, there are two main steps to buying a property, Prendeville said: The exchange of contracts — when a buyer puts down a deposit — and the completion, when the full payment is made to the seller and the property ownership transfers to the buyer.

But there was a bit of a problem: Prendeville and her husband were having difficulty raising a big enough mortgage, and there were already a few other interested buyers.

“I needed the owner to know how much I wanted to buy the chapel, but you’ve got to complete all the legal stuff before it’s really yours,” she said. “So before I left the viewing, I told him I’d like to shake on it. And we did.”

Even though the owner ended up getting much higher offers on the property, he decided to honor their handshake. Prendeville preferred to keep the amount she paid for the chapel private.

“We ended up doing the exchange of contracts within two weeks, on the condition that the completion would be three months later,” she added. This arrangement gave her time to make up for the shortfall by working all summer.

On one end of the chapel, Prendeville created another floor above the existing mezzanine. She put one bedroom and the study on the mezzanine floor, and used the entire third level for the master bedroom.

At the other end of the chapel, she created a new mezzanine level to make space for a sitting room with a TV.

Instead of using typical balustrades, Prendeville opted for glass panels so that the overall view of the chapel isn’t obstructed by unsightly pillars.

“When you first come in, you’ll see the whole triple glass window with no obstruction, and I did that by putting an invisible glass balustrade — without a rail on the top — across the whole floor,” she said.

Prendeville had to consult the chief planning officer of her area as well as English Heritage before making any modifications to the building.

“They made me realize that whatever I put in needed to be easily reversible, with minimal damage, if it ever needed to be reinstated to a chapel,” she said. “So all of the internal walls are made out of cupboards, open shelving, or glass.”

Not only were the partition walls easy to remove, but they also provided her with extra storage space, she added.

“Here we are in a Victorian chapel, but I’ve mixed it with glass and polished stainless steel,” Prendeville said. Even the altar has been turned into a kitchen with shiny, metallic appliances to create a contrasting look, she added. 

Prendeville also designed the sofas that were in the chapel and had them custom-made to match the chapel’s high ceilings, large altar, and oversized church pews.

“If I put in normal-height sofas, they would’ve looked silly,” she said.

Other items in the home include vintage furniture that she amassed from her travels, such as a Chinese wedding bed and decorative cabinets, she added.

“I installed the freestanding bath there so I could start each day by having a bath with the glorious view of the triple stained glass windows on the opposite end of the chapel,” Prendeville said.

But part of the reason why she couldn’t have an enclosed bathroom there was that it would have obstructed the view of the original Latin frieze on the wall, which she told English Heritage that she wouldn’t do. 

The chapel is in the SE5 postal code district in London, per the listing. Detached properties in the area sold for an average price of £1.745 million over the last year, per data from UK real-estate platform Rightmove.

“The original fixed items will stay with the chapel but if people were keen on the furniture, they would need to negotiate separately for this,” Simon Stone, the listing agent with Unique Property Company, told Insider.

“English Heritage wanted anything I added to contrast in style from the original so that you could easily decipher the old from the new,” Prendeville said.

The freestanding bathtub in the master bedroom is also located directly above another bathroom, which makes plumbing easy, she added.

“I couldn’t afford to get a building contractor to do the whole renovation, so I organized all of the tradespeople myself. I was the full-time site manager and bought all the building materials too,” Prendeville said. 

Prendeville and her family lived with her mother on the other side of London during the renovation, she said. Every morning for two years, she would drive to the chapel at 6 a.m. to oversee the contractors. 

Her family ended up moving into the chapel even before the renovation was completed.

“After nine months, the major building work was complete but we still had a lot to do,” she added. “Most of the joinery work hadn’t been installed yet, which meant that my 10-year-old son had to move into a bedroom with only two walls.”

“I know that when I finally sell the chapel and move out, I’ll be clinging to the front door handle. I’ll have to be dragged away, screaming, because I created this home myself and it’s a part of me,” Prendeville said. 

“But on the other hand, a house is only a possession in the end, and one should be able to let go of material things,” she added. “I’ve lived in it long enough — I’ve had years to enjoy what I did.”