For nearly 50 years after St. John Elementary School closed in Albemarle County, its story was largely unknown outside of its alumni or people in the church and community in Cobham.
After the school closed in 1954 due to low attendance, a family moved into the building and reconfigured it into a home. St. John Baptist Church, which is located next to the school, purchased the property in 2003 from a private owner with plans to use its parking lot after the church completed an enlargement and renovation project.
Once the church addition and parking lot were complete, “the school was sitting there in the middle of it, looking shabby,” recalled Rebecca “Becky” Kinney, a lifelong member of St. John church who also attended St. John Elementary School as a child. “And so people would talk, and the church members were asking, ‘What are you all going to do with the school?’”…