Facilities
First Parish owns and is stewards of three significant structures:
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Our historic Meeting House, with its prominent and iconic steeple
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Our contiguous office, classroom, social spaces and kitchen
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An adjacent historic house which used as our parsonage where our pastor resides
Satellite View
Classrooms, Social Space, Offices
Parsonage
Meeting House
Meeting House
The Meeting House structure today is not the original of the parish. The first Meeting House (1736) was sold to a Baptist group in 1809 and is still used by The First Baptist Church of Westwood.
Today's Meeting House was completed that same year at a cost of $5,500. It was dedicated on March 1, 1809. In 1969, that structure was added to and improved upon, increasing capacity and updating facilities. By and large, this is today's Meeting House.
Classrooms, social space, and offices
First Parish Church has a nearly new facility for its offices, classrooms and social space, with a new structure completed in 2017. The story of this new structure demonstrates the initiative and support of Church members and the Westwood community.
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Over the years, the Church has been fortunate to have been given property. On one parcel, across the street from the Meeting House, First Parish in the 1950s built a Parish Hall that served as the social hub of the Church. Still today, one hears stories of "Couples Club" and other popular activities that took place in the Parish Hall. For classroom space, an old gate house was purchased and relocated behind the Parish Hall.
This arrangement served the Church well in the prior decades. Yet, the separation of the Church from the social area was never optimal. Thus, ideas began to germinate about moving everything to be on one side of the street together with the Meeting House.
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In 2016, long-time Church planning moved into action to raise necessary funds. For that, the across-the-street facility was sold to Saint Mark of Ephesus Orthodox Cathedral. Also, the Church sold property abutting Westwood High School to the Town of Westwood. These sales, together with a successful capital campaign, permitted the Church to move ahead on a new facility to bring us modern and energy efficient office, social and classroom space integrated into one facility, contiguous with the Meeting House. That project was completed in September 2017.
Parsonage
The Parsonage, built next to the Meeting House by the Reverend John White in 1815 while he was pastor, was acquired by the Church in 1960, and serves as residence for our present pastor and his family.
