Last week, a large yellow excavator flattened the final wall that once enclosed the Hillsdale Revival Center, a Pentecostal church on West Street.
“The underground church,” as locals and students christened it, was left abandoned for several years. It had a brick vestibule, which faced the street, buttressed by a long basement that ran out the back.
A decade ago, Collegian reporter Nick Tabor interviewed the Revival Center’s pastor of 40 years, Rev. Phillip Potter, and joined the congregation for a prayer service.
According to the late Potter, as quoted in a 2009 Collegian article, a bad storm stymied the addition of a ground floor, so the church remained permanently a basement. Inside the low ceiling of the church, which Tabor describes as “shrouded in mystery,” he met a woman who went by “Sister Potter” and sang hymns, accompanied by organ and percussion from a CD. She was backdropped by a sign, 12 feet long, hung at the front of the sanctuary that read in sharp red letters “HOLINESS TO THE LORD.”
These services stopped several years ago for unknown reasons. The Revival Center then became a favorite spot for students to explore at night. In January 2020, the city of Hillsdale declared the Revival Center abandoned, posting “No Trespassing” signs and boarding the doors, but this seemed to only encourage adventures into the crumbling church.
Some students brought out items from the Revival Center, ascending like crypt robbers from the basement, holding hymnals, flower pots, and framed Bible verses. There are rumors that the “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” sign resides in the feretory of an off-campus student house, rescued from the demolition.
One anonymous senior recalled his frightening trip through a broken window and out the other side. Raccoons and feral cats darted in and out of view along the moldy, red carpet. Every turn from room to room was a hair-raising moment.
“We were hit immediately with a terrible smell from the rotten ceiling,” he said.
The Pentecostal ambience reminded him of a scene out of a Flannery O’Connor story, and he almost expected a snake-handling preacher to appear at the pulpit.
Some students claim to have had “paranormal” experiences in the church, such as inexplicable organ music and a child’s cry. Nate Spieth, a resident of Hillsdale, claimed that he repeatedly saw a shadowy figure walking around the church “at all times of the night.”
These stories do not surprise the current owner of the property, Shanna Cote. She serves as the art director for the college’s external affairs department, and though she never ventured into the Revival Center herself, her son described the place to her.
“There was a handwritten sermon left on the pulpit, and a blazer still hanging close by, and lunch left out on a desk as if one day they just didn’t come back,” she said.
The Revival Center’s desertion happened suddenly and without formal explanation. However, poor church finances and the retirement of Rev. Potter could be among the reasons for its closure.
Rev. Potter died in February 2020 at The Laurels nursing home in Coldwater and is buried in Oak Grove cemetery, a short walk from the Revival Center. The Potters owned seven properties on West Street, including the Revival Center, but when their six properties went up for auction at a county tax sale, the church property could not be sold because of its tax-exempt status.
A couple of years ago, Cote was searching for a property on which to build a home. She attempted to contact the Potters about the Revival Center property, but with no success.
“We ended up buying another house just north of the church, next to a house owned by the Potters,” she said. “After a major renovation, we moved into our new house and called it a day.”
However, the Church of God in Michigan contacted Cote earlier this year, offering to sell the Revival Center, which they had acquired after Potter’s death. Cote bought the property and had the Revival Center demolished. She currently has no plans to build on the property.
“Mostly, we just wanted to make the neighborhood safer,” she said. “There was definitely a lot of foot traffic in and around the church, and I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. We’ll probably just plant grass and let our kids enjoy a pickup soccer game or a football game.”
The razing of the Revival Center follows two recent demolitions of prominent abandoned places: the Borden Road farmhouse in Jonesville and the Prehistoric Forest, a dinosaur-themed amusement park in the Irish Hills.
As the opportunities for delinquency near campus diminish, at least a few students have looked wistfully at the bare lot where the Revival Center once stood, knowing that they will never again descend into its undercroft.
