From Palm Beach County to Miami-Dade, 11 cities are celebrating their centennials in 2025 and 2026. WLRN News' series "History We Call Home" spotlights the moments, ideas and people that made these cities part of our community's fabric over the past century.
They call themselves the “Church of the Open Door.”
It was 100 years ago when the Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ opened its doors after finalizing construction. It was the first church and one of the first public buildings constructed in the city of Coral Gables.
Now, it serves as a hub for spiritual nourishment and progressive advocacy for people across South Florida.
But the century-old structure is in need of repair, and church leaders are raising money for ongoing historic preservation projects — as well as investing in its next century.
Founder inspired by 'City Beautiful' movement
Coral Gables founder George Merrick organized the construction of the church as a means to honor his late father, Rev. Solomon Greasley Merrick: a congregational minister.
Plans for the historic structure began in earnest in 1923. The organizing group was known as the Coral Gables Community Church Society. A century later, the congregation marked its 100-year anniversary with a party.
The minister’s widow, Althea Merrick, was part of that original organizing effort. Together, the church society worked out of a small parsonage, and a developing congregation was led by a series of temporary pastors until construction was finalized and the building was dedicated in April 1925 — the same year the city was incorporated.
READ MORE: History We Call Home: How the Great Land Boom shaped South Florida 100 years ago
George Merrick became a real estate developer after studying in New York, where he likely rubbed shoulders with many burgeoning architects and designers. He then became inspired by an American urban planning movement that cropped up between the 1890s and 1920s, called the “City Beautiful” movement, which in turn, inspired the well-known nickname for Coral Gables.
The movement took inspiration from urban landscaping in Europe, hence the church’s Mediterranean Revival style build.
Despite the city’s success and quick planning in its early years, the combined pressures of the Great Depression in the late 1920s and 1930s and a hurricane to the Miami-area in 1926 devastated the city, crumbling much of Coral Gables' infrastructure, and leaving Merrick himself destitute by 1928.
Through extreme hardships, the congregational church stepped up to protect its community members. In fact, hundreds of people were fed out of the church following the 1926 hurricane, according to George Merrick, Son of the South Wind, a non-fiction retelling of the founder’s life — written by Miami historian Arva Moore Parks McCabe.
More than a place of worship, in its early days, the church also served as a meeting space where lots of community institutions were first organized.
City government meetings where held there before Coral Gables had buildings dedicated to that work. The first manifestations of the Coral Gables Public Library and Woman's Club also happened there. The church was also home to some of the University of Miami’s early commencement ceremonies, according to a Miami Herald article from the 1970's that commemorated the church's 50th anniversary.
“A lot of folks travel quite a distance... This is the community that resonates with them — where they feel at home, where they feel like they're getting their spiritual nourishment."Rev. Laurie Hafner
“In my mind, George Merrick… understood the church as a meeting house,” said the Rev. Laurie Hafner, the senior pastor who has been leading the congregation for about 19 years.
Meeting houses, in Protestant denominations, were gathering spaces focused on community engagement, with arts, education and political discourse at the forefront of programming.
At this Coral Gables church, that was also true.
One of the nation's first 'underground' college newspapers was printed on a press hidden in the church tower during the late 1940s.
"The paper protested the policies of the University's first President Dr. Bowman Ashe who was also a member of the church," wrote Miami Herald reporter Adon Taft.
Today, members from across the region and world
At the beginning, there were less than 100 charter members. Now, the congregation includes around 750 members who join both in person, and virtually from around the globe.
While some folks come from Coral Gables, the majority of its membership commutes from outside the city. Every week, members come from as far south as Homestead and as far north as Boynton Beach in Palm Beach County, Hafner said.
“A lot of folks travel quite a distance and will pass hundreds of churches on their way in here on Sunday mornings,” Hafner said. “Just because this is the community that resonates with them — where they feel at home, where they feel like they're getting their spiritual nourishment."
Since the church’s humble beginnings, it still strives to embody the spirit of a meeting house. They run a preschool, have regular arts events and provide a meeting space to more than 30 community groups throughout the year including the local chapter of the Sierra Club, a Girl Scouts troop, Coral Gables Democrats, as well as music and garden clubs.
Ann Stith has been coming to the church since the 1990s. After becoming disillusioned with the spiritual denomination of her childhood, she began a search for a place to help her then-young children establish strong moral foundations. Since joining the UCC in Coral Gables, Stith has played an active role in the congregation by sitting on several organizing committees and, more recently, helping to establish the church’s centennial celebration plans.
“Every single Sunday when I sit in the pew, I'm reminded that I'm not just a single person who thinks the world revolves around [her],” Stith said. “I'm reminded of the struggles of other people and that I need to be mindful of my own behaviors and mindful that we're a community and we depend on other people.”
The church has a focus not just on spiritual guidance, but pushing for progressive policies as well. In years past, they’ve been outspoken supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, and of the LGBTQ community — even marching annually in Miami Beach’s Pride Parade. Hafner said they were the first church to do so when the Pride event was established in 2008.
They’ve also advocated against book banning as Florida continues to lead the charge in pulling novels off the shelves in school libraries. The church has coordinated much of those efforts with another Coral Gables institution: Books & Books.
Most recently, Hafner and others from the church rallied in protest against the city’s arrangement between local and federal officials to deputize Coral Gables police as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers, called a 287(g) agreement.
Historic preservation
To commemorate the church’s centennial, the house of worship launched a fundraising campaign with the lofty goal of raising $1 million. Much of those funds are being earmarked for ongoing historic preservation efforts.
“We took a good hard look at what needed to be done,” Hafner said. “And the number one thing was our roof.”
The roof, covered by pan-and-barrel clay tiles, was in disrepair, according to the pastor. During heavy rain, leaks sent water pouring into the building, and mold and mildew became a concern.
“So we needed to shelter this building,” she said. “That was really important to us, and while we say the church is more than the building, the building allows us to do a lot of good work in the community and, again, to open our doors.”
They’re also in the process of adding insulation, repairing windows, cracks in the stucco and adding a coat of fresh paint to the exterior. The church’s aging HVAC system needs major upgrades as well. On the inside of the church’s sanctuary, worn-down pew cushions need replacing.
One restoration project, Hafner said, is about preserving the heart of the institution. “ We're such a music church and music is so integral to our ministry,” she said.
A beloved Bösendorfer grand piano that was donated several decades ago now, sits in the sanctuary with worn-out strings, dents and unaligned pedals. It too, will be renovated.
But more than finding ways to preserve structures of the past, the ministry is hoping to carve out protections for future generations in the next 100 years of the church’s lifespan. Funding will also go toward hiring a youth minister to launch programming geared toward young people.
Helping those in hardship
Every day, a handful of people show up at the church seeking help with different hardships they face. Raul Hernandez, who works as a receptionist and social worker for the Gables UCC, greets them. He originally came to the U.S. from Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980.
After being rescued from a sinking vessel and flown to the naval base in Boca Chica Key, Hernandez was transferred to a refugee camp in Pennsylvania. Then, he became one of the many bilingual people hired in Miami to assist unaccompanied minors that arrived during that time period.
Since then, he’s spent his years working in refugee resettlement programming. Now though, Hernandez takes calls and opens the church doors to people experiencing homelessness, struggling with roadblocks in their immigration status and folks who are unable to pay accumulating medical bills.
“We hear all kinds of stories,” Hernandez said. “People would knock on the door and sit down with us and they pour their heart out and all their pain and all their needs.”
It was out of Hernandez’s work, walking people through what pathways and services are available to ease their burdens, that a vision for a future Medical debt relief program was born.
About 10% of the funds from the centennial will be allocated for the program. The church plans to partner with a nonprofit organization called Undue Medical Debt, which buys up pennies on the dollar of people's accumulated financial burdens. According to the organization, every $10 goes toward $1,000 of debt relief.
The church's donation will go toward Miami-Dade County residents specifically, and church leaders are still in the process of meeting with the nonprofit to make the gift.
“ It doesn't benefit those who are homeless or hungry, necessarily, when you put [up] a new roof,” Hernandez said. “So, the idea was, yes, this [new program] is necessary, there is something that needs to be done.”
