Church windows that turned out to be Tiffany sold for $200,000

Two stained-glass rose windows from a historic West Philadelphia church sold at auction today for $100,000 each. Designed by Tiffany studios in 1904, the windows were sold, bundled with other furnishings, last November for $6,000.

The sale at Freeman’s, the Philadelphia-based auction house, marks the end of a twisting journey for the rare windows. For more than 100 years, they sat untouched in the gable ends of the sanctuary of the colossal church at 50th Street and Baltimore Avenue. Then, in the summer of 2022, Emmanuel Christian Center purchased the building from Hickman Temple A.M.E. Church. The new pastor, William Brownlee, Sr., began to renovate to make the 15,000-square-foot Gothic space more modern.

» READ MORE: A church sold its old stained glass windows for $6,000. It turned out they were rare Tiffany glass.

In the fall, he sold the windows, along with other fixtures and furnishings, to Paul Brown, an architectural salvager based in Lancaster. Brownlee was not aware that the windows were by Tiffany; a recent historic nomination for the building did not mention it. Construction at the church, which has a crumbling bell tower, is now suspended, because the congregation ran out of money.

Freeman’s auctioned the windows on behalf of Brown, the Lancaster salvager. With the buyer’s premium — an additional fee based on the hammer price of the item, which goes to the auction house — the final purchase price was $126,000 each.

A day before the auction, Brown and Brownlee told The Inquirer they were in discussions that would result in Emmanuel Christian Center receiving 25% of the net profits from the sale of the two windows on Thursday. After the auction, they declined to share the terms of the final agreement. The Inquirer was not able to independently verify it.

Brownlee asked his lawyer to negotiate with the architectural salvager on the church’s behalf after The Inquirer published an article about the impending sale of the windows.

“A portion of the proceeds of the sale should rightfully go to the church that’s focused on helping residents,” said Brownlee. “I’m not a historian or a preservationist, and even they didn’t know what we had.”

Brownlee said he had driven to Freeman’s on the morning of the auction to say the church no longer had a dispute with Brown over the windows.

The buyer of the windows asked to remain anonymous, Freeman’s said.

The windows attracted national attention, and though the auction was supposed to be open to the public, Freeman’s announced the day before that it would be open only to active bidders, barring the media and curious spectators from seeing the sale in person. The event was live-streamed on the auction house’s website.

As for the church, Brownlee has been working with the University City District’s Project Rehab to secure permits and apply for grant funding to continue construction. Project Rehab introduced him to a number of lawyers with expertise in real estate, contract law, and litigation to consult about the already-sold windows once it became clear how valuable they were.

“I’m hoping that the credibility of the congregation is viewed more favorably, and that a year or so from now, they are in that building, with the lights on, having their services, being the community space that Pastor Brownlee envisioned,” said Ryan Spak, founder of Project Rehab.

Despite the many turns in the story of the century-old windows, their sale at Freeman’s was over in about two minutes.

“At $100,000. Last chance,” the auctioneer said before pounding his gavel on the second of the two windows. “Thank you all. Sold for $100,000.”

This story has been updated to reflect the buyer’s premium on the windows at Freeman’s.