Middletown Couple, Stained-Glass Makers for 30 Years, Transformed Orange County Church

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y.—Ken and Julene DeLeeuw have been making and restoring stained-glass windows in their home studio for more than 30 years, and have left their mark on the community through hard work and charity.

The DeLeeuws, both 64, began exploring the world of stained-glass windows when they bought their house in Middletown about 30 years ago. They wanted a window for the home, and went to the stained-glass studio in Sugar Loaf, New York.

The studio offered classes on creating stained windows, so the DeLeeuws decided to learn to make their own. After eight weeks of class, the two were asked to help run the class and work with the couple running it to restore windows.

The window they made sits now in their living room, overlooking the front porch.

Because the first of their four daughters had already been born, Ken DeLeeuw set up a glass working studio in their basement, and they have operated out of it since, making glass part time in addition to their full-time jobs. Ken DeLeeuw has worked at Sierra Heating and Air Conditioning in Middletown for 43 years, and will be retiring in 10 months to make glasswork his full-time focus.

He told The Epoch Times on Oct. 12 that he felt attracted to the craft because in high school he wanted to be an architect, though he didn’t have the grades. Making the stained glass allowed him to use his mechanical drawing and design skills, and he is able to install the windows himself with his construction know-how.

Julene DeLeeuw has a college background in art and is her husband’s biggest critic, making sure to keep him in the artistic realm of reason.

The pair have put their windows in many houses, businesses, and churches. Ken DeLeeuw said he can drive through Orange County and see several windows that he’s made, including at a Victorian house in downtown Middletown that is now the restaurant Taiwan Way, at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Middletown, and at First Reformed Church in Walden.

He said there aren’t many people willing to do small restorations for stained-glass windows as was necessary at the Walden church.

“There just isn’t anybody. … You got your major studios down in New York City, but we did some work for Walden Reformed Church, and they had Lamb Studios come up, and they just didn’t want to fix one window,” he said. “They wanted to fix all 10, and that was the only way they were going to do it. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll fix one window.’”

Most work they receive comes through word of mouth, Julene DeLeeuw said, as they don’t advertise their business. The two are not only happy to work on custom windows, stained-glass art pieces, or window restorations people ask for; they truly appreciate stained windows for the art’s merit.

Ken DeLeeuw recalled one time when a house in the area with a lot of stained glass burned down.

“Here next to the dumpster were these stained-glass windows,” he said. “I just stopped and said, ‘What are you doing with them?’ He goes, ‘Well, they’re gonna go to a landfill.’ … That [glass] is in our dining room. I put a frame around it.”

Most of the work they do is for churches and private commissions. The two noticed a slump in demand during and after the COVID–19 pandemic, because stained glass is something that people spend their spare money on. Julene DeLeeuw said they still always have something to do.

The Process

The couple explained their process of making stained glass using a Luther Rose pattern a member of their church requested.

All creations start with a drawn design, then colored glass is chosen and cut to shape using a simple tool. The piece is taken to a grinder to reach a perfect shape and eliminate the sharp and rough edges. Ken DeLeeuw reported that cuts do happen, but said he’s never received anything that required stitches.

Breaks also happen often, he said.

“It breaks wrong all the time, you get frustrated. … When you’re making a piece, you buy enough that you figure for about 20 percent waste,” he said.

The glass is then cleaned and wrapped in copper foil, or it’s ready for leadwork. The copper foil method allows for detailed stained-glass pieces, while the lead method is generally for large church pieces. The lead method has remained the same since medieval times, Ken DeLeeuw noted.

The glass is then soldered into the pattern. For very detailed pieces, glass paint is fired onto the piece in a kiln. The paint is made of crushed colored glass, which melts into the window.

They would charge about $75 for a work such as the Luther Rose.

The DeLeeuws split the work by what they do best. She has a steady hand and is excellent at soldering the metal and glass, while he is a fast cutter and does most of the designing.

To restore an old window, they cover it with paper and rub it down to print the pattern on the larger paper. Then the window is taken apart and the glass separated. The glass is cleaned, and replacements are created for broken pieces. Then it’s soldered together.

One example is a pair of industrial art pieces from the 1950s that they rebuilt. One was completely restored, taken apart, and put back together.

The Church

The DeLeeuws have been members of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Middletown for almost 40 years, and it’s the site of many of their pieces, including what Ken DeLeeuw calls his masterpiece.

They first presented the church with stained-glass windows on the building’s 100th anniversary, in 1998. They made eight square windows for the side of the sanctuary, bearing Christian images such as the cross, crown, and goblet. These were later moved to a different part of the church when the building had major expansions in 2009.

The two donated all their labor, while the glass used in their projects was paid for by congregation donations. Work done for other churches was donated as well.

In 2000, the couple installed four Gospel windows near what was then the front entrance. Each window tells the story of one of the Gospels; it’s important to Ken DeLeeuw that people can see the stories of the Bible.

“When stained-glass work started in churches, the church was spoken in Latin, and the people were illiterate. … So stained-glass artists told Bible stories in glass that you can look at, and [people could] figure out what it meant,” he said.

Pastor Peter Rustico worked closely with the DeLeeuws on their faith pieces, and particularly the Gospel windows. Rustico told The Epoch Times on Oct. 11 that he helped with the symbolism and specific parables represented, such as the parable of the good Samaritan, which is in the Gospel of Luke.

Rustico said, “I’d like to think that the church will be there for hundreds of years and people who never knew the name of Ken and Julene DeLeeuw or who the pastor was … will still admire the faith and the beauty that was left behind.”

After the Gospel windows, the DeLeeuws contributed other glass art to the church, including a sandblasted 9/11 memorial and sandblasted patterns for the glass doors.

In 2009, they restored an original stained-glass window of the church—a beautifully done piece of Jesus Christ holding a lamb and a shepherd’s crook that dated back to 1913, and hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. No one knows who originally created the window.

For the new sanctuary, they installed an eight-foot-tall, circular window above the altar. The background is blue, with a golden Jerusalem Cross. The glass is an inch thick, and Ken DeLeeuw estimated that in the whole new sanctuary, including the many other windows, he used 3 tons of glass. Putting stained windows in the new sanctuary took two years.

Along the sides of the sanctuary are several large window pieces, each with Christian imagery and statements Christ made in the Gospel of John, since the church is named for St. John. These phrases include “I am the vine,” “I am the light of the world,” and “I am the living bread.”

The DeLeeuws shared how their love for God inspired them to create.

Ken DeLeeuw said, “For me, this was a gift I didn’t ask for, and I use it for God’s glory.”

Julene DeLeeuw said: “We gave it back. We love our church.”

The closest either came to being seriously injured from the hobby was when they were moving an old window out to put a stained one in. Julene DeLeeuw let one of the old window panes slip from her hand, and it shattered all over her. She was not hurt at all.

She said, “It’s a miracle that I didn’t get a scratch.”

Ken DeLeeuw signs all his church works the way the composer Johann Sebastian Bach did: “Soli Deo Gloria” (Glory to God Alone).

His favorite piece, which he described as his masterpiece, is the good shepherd window, which he completed in 2013. He used a glass layering method to create shadowed effects and special colors.

The huge window is full of detail and meaning, he said. It shows the scene of Christ speaking to children in a green landscape before a pool, flanked by Roman-style pillars.

“The Roman columns, that was the time Christ walked the earth. … In the Lutheran Church, baptism is one of the first sacraments, very important,” he said. “So that’s why I have the water. If you see where his foot is on that rock … he told Peter … on this rock, or the truth, I will build my church. That’s why his foot is on a rock.”

He said it was important that in the scene, Christ teaches children from all over the world, since Christ loves all children. The kids in the piece span the continents, and their positions signify Christ’s relation to them.

“I have all kids from different continents,” he said. “[A child from Africa is] handing a shepherd’s crook, because Christ is the good shepherd. I have a girl from Asia. Christ is our friend. That’s how you hold your friend. He is our comforter. [The baby being held], she’s a Middle Eastern child. If you look at her eyes, it looks like she was crying.”