The Lucas Offers a Slice of Heaven in the South End

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Boston’s luxury boom has wrought Seaport skyscrapers, East Boston behemoths, and shiny new downtown domiciles. Now for something completely different: elegant South End residences built inside a historical church.

The late-19th-century Holy Trinity German Church will soon become the Lucas, a 33-unit luxury condominium building slated to be complete in the spring of 2017.

“It’s beautiful and different from anything else in the city,” says Coldwell Banker’s Ricardo Rodriguez, the exclusive marketing agent for the property. “Most luxury construction has hundreds of units. Not much has been done at this kind of personal scale.”

The building has eight residential floors, with the bottom three housed in the church proper. Units on those floors sold rapidly, but a handful of four-bedroom homes remain on the market. These larger condos, which range from 2,500 to 3,500 square feet, are encased within a newly built steel-and-glass tower that offers decks and city views. The cost? Up to $3.4 million.

Of course, the property has all the amenities a well-heeled city dweller might pray for: a concierge, a common courtyard with a fire pit, and a state-of-the-art gym. There’s also a pet spa with a large walk-in shower featuring handglazed subway tiles—a godsend for dog-loving urbanites. “I own a mastiff, and it’s almost impossible not to drown your house with water when or if you decide to bathe them in your bathroom,” says Lucas interior designer Alina Wolhardt, from Wolf in Sheep Design.

With the Back Bay, Chinatown, and the South End right at your doorstep, the location’s pretty dreamy, too—a holy trinity indeed.

136 Shawmut Ave., Boston, 617-796-6084, thelucasboston.com.

BY THE NUMBERS
The South End

1884
Year the first Mass was celebrated at Holy Trinity.

2008
Year Holy Trinity closed.

500,000
Pounds of clothes and shoes shipped overseas by Holy Trinity parishioners during World War II.

70%
Percentage of Catholics in eastern Massachusetts attending weekly Mass in 1970.

16%
Percentage attending weekly Mass in 2015.

Source, Catholic Mass Statistics: Archdiocese of Boston