home HABITAT
HOME SWEET CHOUSE The Hughes family’s divine domicile BY CHRISTINE EDDINGTON PHOTOS BY DON RISI
DECA DE S AG O, Nicole Hughes’ parents commissioned a rather large painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They intended for it to hang in a specific spot on a large blank wall in the recently renovated Catholic church the family attended – but before Hughes’ parents could surprise the congregation with the special work of art, another piece was hung in the spot. “Rather than say anything, my parents put the painting away,” she says. And it languished, hidden from view, until Hughes, her husband Matt and their daughter Ryan, 11, moved into the former Catholic church across from Lake Hefner they now call home.
50
405 MAGAZINE MAY 2018
The family learned that when the church opened its doors in 1984, it was called the Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel. It was built in 1984 by the Carmack family, whose patriarch, Roy, was a five-time mayor and councilman of The Village. In 1990, when the congregation outgrew the chapel, the Carmacks added a kitchen and garage and turned it into a residence, which they sold in 1996. The new, larger church was built about five lots south on Lakeside in 1991, and is now Queen of Angels Chapel. “My mother said to me, ‘You will not believe what I have in my basement.’ And it’s perfect,” Hughes says. Our Lady, now rescued from her underground lair, hangs in the former