Selling the Church Property

[Rev.Cambeul]

Selling the Church Property
By Ben Klassen, PME.

When we agreed to move the headquarters to Milwaukee, we also agreed to sell the church real estate here at Otto and turn over the proceeds of the sale to their group so that they could fund their various needs in equipment, publishing the newspaper, and other requirements in order to run their program. By June 15, we had already shipped our entire inventory of books over to their center, it was now necessary to dispose of the real estate as quickly as possible to get the funds in order to get their program into high gear. Since most of their membership consisted of skinheads and other young fellows who were next to broke, they had little ready cash, and as I have already pointed out, they did not even have enough money on hand to pay for transfer of the books over to their Headquarters. Everybody looked to me to fund everything, as if I had a bottomless gold mine at my disposal.

I have been asked by various people, why did I sell the church at all? After all, the church was consecrated ground, our starting point, our geographical Holy Center, much as Mecca is to the Moslems, Jerusalem to the Jews, and Nuremberg to the Nazis. All this is true, and it pained me more than anybody, since I had put so much of myself into the center. I hope that in some future day when we have become the worldwide religion of the White Race, we will be able to repossess it and restore it to its original pristine form. Much as it pained me to do so, there were several compelling reasons as to why I did what I had to do.

In the first place, at 74, old age was creeping up on me, and being mortal as everyone else, I did not want to kick the bucket and leave the movement floundering without a designated leader. As you will remember, I had been looking for the "great promoter' for the last ten years, without success.

Now, in 1992, 1 was determined to resign and do what I could to provide for continuity. Milwaukee seemed my best shot.
Secondly, the George Loeb case was coming to trial, and who could foresee what the consequences of that might engender. I realized that our properties were built for a specific purpose (to promote the cause of the Church of the Creator) and finding a buyer might be difficult and perhaps take years. I knew in order to make the deal attractive I would have to offer it at a price far below its real value. However, under the circumstances, time was of the essence, and in a way, was much more important than waiting for years, perhaps, in order to obtain a selling price that reflected its true value.

Fortunately, at the $100,000 asking price a bonafide buyer appeared on the scene in short order. His name was Dr. William Pierce, who had an operation similar to ours at his mountain complex near Hiilsboro, West Virginia.

Although only from a distance, I have known Dr. Pierce for about 18 years, but had met him only twice back in 1975 when he still operated on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Our ideologies regarding race ran on a parallel course, although as far as religion was concerned, I never did understand the logic of what he called his Cosmotheism religion, no matter how many times he tried to explain it in his literature. But it has not been of any significance as far as our common goals of promoting White racial solidarity was concerned. I have always admired Dr. Pierce as a great man and an outstanding intellectual thinker, and as one of us. I had been corresponding with him, although infrequently, and off and on, as far back as 1975, and some of those letters appear in my books, The Klassen Letters.

When he moved from Washington to his mountain complex in West Virginia, I called him and had every intention of visiting him there, but somehow, I never got around to it. In early 1992 I invited him to come and visit us here in North Carolina instead, and on Sunday, March 22, 1992, he did indeed come down and spend the day here. We had lunch together, had a congenial visit, and I showed him our premises. He left me a collection of his fine magazine National Vanguard, (1982-1985), and also a 6" x 48" plastic tube for burying guns or other valuables. At that time (March 22) I had not yet given any thought to moving our headquarters to Milwaukee, or any other place.

However, about two months later, after my experience with Charles Altvater in trying him out as a succeeding Pontifex, I came to the inevitable conclusion that whereas our location here had been extremely productive, but it had, now that I was determined to retire, outlived its usefulness. I made preparations to move the Headquarters to Milwaukee, as I have described in the previous chapter, and sell the property for the bargain price of $100,000. About three weeks later, I tried to call Dr. Pierce and let him know the place was for sale and would he spread the word. Instead, I got Will Williams answering the phone and asked him to have Dr. Pierce call me back. Meanwhile, we got embroiled in a conversation, (Will Williams, you may recall, used to be my Hasta Primus at one time) and I mentioned to him that I was moving the Headquarters and putting the place up for sale at the bargain price of $100,000.

About an hour later (this was on June 6) Dr. Pierce did call back and surprised me by saying that he was willing to buy the premises at that price, and would immediately send me a letter to that effect, enclosing a $1000 in earnest money with it.
At 11 AM, on Sunday, June 21, William Pierce, his new Hungarian wife Susan, and Will Williams arrived in a big white van to reinspect the properties, to sort things out, and go over the property, including the boundary lines. Dr. Pierce and I hammered out the details of the transaction and tied them down in writing. It was to be a cash deal by Cashier's check, and the closing date was to be July 17th.

True to his word, at 9 AM William Pierce, his wife, and Will Williams arrived at my house. They had planned to be here earlier the previous night, in fact, but had had a transmission breakdown on the big white van. At 10 o'clock we all met at my attorney's office, Bobby Key, of Jones, Key, Melvin and Patton, in Franklin. The deeds were all prepared in advance and were duly signed. Everything went smoothly, except when it came to the prorationing and adjustment of taxes. The county had a surprise in store for me. The Macon County Tax Office, unbeknownst to me had the church properties divided into two parcels, Parcel One, on which the church resided, and another bill for Parcel Two, for the other 20 acres. Parcel One had been tax exempt until the last two years, but now that they deemed it taxable, they had sent the bills to Lighthouse Point, Florida, which they knew very well I had left nine years ago and the mail would not be forwarded. I'm not sure what their game plan was, but believe that they conspired that if I never saw those bills, and therefore could not take care of them, they would sooner or later foreclose on the main church building. It was undoubtedly one of Richard Lightner's tricks. However, at the closing, with the attorney inquiring into the total taxes due, they revealed that they had sent these bills to Florida, and that I was delinquent for the years 1990 and 1991, and I had to come up with an unexpected $2,133.54 in order to close the deal.

As agreed upon, Dr. Pierce came up with two cashier's checks totalling $100,000. I paid the extra taxes and signed the deeds, and the deal was completed. While in the Courthouse tax office paying the additional taxes, Will Williams said out loud "I wonder where Richard Lightner lives." Lightner was the scoundrel who had instigated the revocation of our tax exempt status, while all the other churches in the county were enjoying exemption without any hassle.

The four of us, Dr. Pierce, his wife, Will Williams and I, then went across the alley from the courthouse to have lunch at the Courthouse Plaza Restaurant. We were enjoying our meal, and were about half way through, when in saunters Sheriff Homer Holbrook up to our table with Richard Lightner at his heels, and said to me in a challenging tone, "I understand you were wondering where Richard Lightner lives. Why did you want to know?" I was somewhat surprised, since I had always considered us as being on a friendly basis in all our previous meetings. I said no, I never said that. At this point Will cut in and replied in a bravado voice "I said that." Holbrook turned on him and asked "Why do you want to know?" Will casually replied, "Oh, its just a hobby of mine." Then Sheriff Holbrook really started to chew Will out and I thought a real fight would ensue, but Will held his temper and took it. It sort of spoiled our lunch, but on the other hand, it provided unexpected entertainment. Actually, the Sheriff was out of line and out of his territory, since we were not in the county but within the city jurisdiction, and if anybody had any beef about Will exercising his First Amendment rights, it should have been the Franklin city police. I was somewhat irritated about the way they barged in on our lunch, but then, I was only an innocent bystander.

So ended our business transaction on a note of rancor and also amusement. Dr. Pierce, his wife and Will went back to the church cleaning up affairs, taking down our big eight foot logo and the large letters around it, saying THE CHURCH OF THE CREATOR. After some more cleaning up, the party of three left for West Virginia, their van loaded to the gills.

[SethCochran]

Does the National Alliance still own the church building, school for gifted boys, etc.?

[Rev.Cambeul]

No. They sold it again as soon as they could, making a tidy profit which they lost soon after to Mansfield and the SPLC.

[PatTracy]

I have never been able to get a straight answer as to who or what owns World Center. I visited in March 32AC half expecting shots fired across my path. The truth is that no one cared that I was there. One of the neighbors smiled and waved as I made my way up the road. No one appeared as I walked across the open field to the Ben Klassen Memorial Park. I laid my white roses at the stone, lamenting the thorns and brush that had grown around it.
As far as I have been told, Creators are allowed to travel there and pay their respects as our Religious rights afford. I may return there again soon. This time I will bring a pair of clippers.