09/04/2026
๐ Project Complete: South County Church โ The Chapel at Laurel Hill
We're proud to share the completion of our renovation of The Chapel, a historic building on the former Lorton Reformatory site in Fairfax County, now known as Laurel Hill.
This building has quite a story. The site was commissioned in the early 1900s under President Theodore Roosevelt as a progressive, campus-style prison โ inmates learned trade skills, and remarkably, the dormitory buildings were built by the prisoners themselves, using bricks fired in on-site kilns and lumber cut from the property. It operated until 2001 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, being thoughtfully reimagined as a mixed-use community.
Our team took this piece of history and transformed it into a vibrant home for South County Church, including:
โช A reconfigured sanctuary and fellowship hall
๐ฝ๏ธ A new warming kitchen and social coffee area
๐ช Restored historic doors, carefully relocated to preserve the building's character
โฟ New ADA-compliant ramps and restrooms
๐ซ New classrooms and office space
It's not every day you get to help turn a 100+ year old reformatory chapel into a space for community and worship. Congratulations to South County Church, and thank you to our entire project team for bringing this vision to life!