St. Augustine Altar

St. Augustine is an extraordinary church. Among the wonders of the church is the 1897 alabaster reredos (Charles F. Hall Company) which housed a stunning gold and jewel encrusted tabernacle valued over $2Million. In 2022 the tabernacle was stolen. In order to get at the gold within, the area around it was hacked apart, leaving an angel decapitated, and the force used to extract the tabernacle from the steel safe left the stone fractured and unstable.

EverGreene began by carefully removing the compromised safe, which had been integral to the altar’s construction. This involved precision cutting and rigging to prevent further damage to the surrounding stonework. Small fragments of the stolen tabernacle including pieces of gold and precious stones were recovered during the safe’s removal and returned to the church.

Conservators used an arsenal of tools to realign and repair the altar including epoxy, structural pins, and custom fills, resetting displaced marble elements and reinforcing fractured areas, including a broken column and detached finials. Cleaning the reredos used a combination of dry and wet methods to target years of soot, wax, and staining, reviving its luminous stone surfaces and intricate detailing.

The stolen tabernacle has not been recovered and the replacement is not nearly so grand as the original, but the blessed sacrament is once again housed within a stunning high altar, which is more resplendent than before the heist!