Church Revives Mansion Retreat to Shelter Syrian Refugees

The day before the terrorist attacks on Paris last month, local British officials near Shakespeare’s birthplace approved a Church of England plan to dedicate this 18th-century mansion — a former Christian retreat called Offa House — to welcoming and hosting Syrian refugees.

After the French massacre, most U.S. governors declared they would bar refugees from their states. (In the past few days, Texas, the state that has fought hardest to block them, has eased up a bit, and a dozen refugees are expected to arrive in Dallas and Houston today.)

But in the quiet rural village of Offchurch, about 100 miles northwest of London in Warwickshire, the attacks didn’t alter plans. The conversion of Offa House received final approval a few days later.

“We are undeterred,” Graeme Pringle, communications director for the church’s regional Diocese of Coventry, told Yahoo Real Estate.

The church has been vocal in its desire to help refugees fleeing the nearly five-year war in Syria, and has openly disagreed with the British government’s response to the refugee crisis.

In what was initially a private letter to Prime Minister David Cameron, signed by 84 bishops, the church called on the government to more than double the number of refugees it would accept — to 50,000 over five years, not 20,000 — and to set up a national welcome board to help resettle new arrivals. The bishops themselves pledged to encourage “churches, congregations and individuals to make rental properties and spare housing available for use by resettled refugees,” among other actions.

Its 2-acre Offa House property includes the 10,500-square-foot Georgian mansion with 27 bedrooms (16 with baths), conference room and chapels; a two-story building known as “The Lodge,” with two bedrooms in its 900 square feet; a one-bedroom, 400-square-foot coach house; with a chapel, a conference suite and a coach house. The church had run it as a retreat but closed it two years ago and put it up for sale, marketing it as a potential country hotel, private school or nursing home. The property attracted no serious offers, and the church took it off the market, partially reopening it for daily prayer.

Over the last few months, plans have taken shape to convert it into a refugee welcome center.

Twenty-three bedrooms are to be made available to house up to 35 refugees at a time, mostly women and children, for a week or two while they await resettlement to more permanent homes, the church says: “Offa House would provide Christian hospitality to those so dreadfully displaced from their homes and from a country engulfed in civil war. The House and gardens would provide a safe space for children to play and for everyone to start coming to terms with their traumatic past whilst being given assistance with starting their new lives in this country.”

The Offa House project has the support of the city, district and county councils. Most of the funding is to come from the U.K. government’s Vulnerable Persons Relocation program, though “we envisage there being some fundraising by churches and individuals in order to enhance the welcome being offered to these refugees,” the church says, and religious officials also hope for “volunteers within the local community, the wider Church and other faith groups.”

“It is very important that Offa House feels like a home rather than an institution,” the church says.

Pringle says locals have not grown jittery since the Paris attacks. “Most of the local community support the project. At the planning permission stage, there were four times as many letters of support than objections.”

The program is expected to last five years, which coincides with the total commitment the U.K. has made to bring refugees in. The diocese is still considering what to do with the property after that period is up.

More on Yahoo Real Estate:

• You Can Own a 30-Room Mansion for $30K – With a Catch, of Course (25 photos)
• ‘Simpsons’ Co-Creator Gives Away Last of His Fortune, $18M Architectural Gem (25 photos)
• Old Church House Has Stained Glass, Angels … and Graves in the Garden (21 photos)