Salem Lutheran Church's Beautiful New Steeple

Some projects earn a place in the company album forever. Salem Lutheran's new steeple is one of them, not because it was the tallest or the trickiest, though it was both, but because of the Sunday morning the congregation looked up and gasped.

The original steeple had served the congregation for generations, but decades of Minnesota winters had done what they do: flashing fatigue, substrate rot hidden under historic cladding, and a silhouette that had begun to lean, gently, the way tired structures do. The building committee asked the question every church eventually asks: patch again, or restore properly?

We answered with a plan: full structural assessment, a lightweight standing seam system in the original profile, custom-bent transitions where the tower meets the nave, and a cross and finial refurbished by a local metal artist. Craning day drew chairs on the lawn. The choir sang from the steps. Our foreman, who does not sing, reported that the panels seated like hymns.

The steeple now leads the skyline the way it did a century ago, dry and straight, with a maintenance schedule that will keep it that way for the grandchildren of today's congregation. Ministry happens inside. We are honored to have guarded the lid.