“Clifton Bought the Land”: How a Kingston Brothel Became a Church That Has Served Its Community for 40 Years

• Mountain View New Testament Church of God stands on the site of a former brothel
• The Clifton New Testament Church of God bought the property from October 1984
• The old building’s bathroom became the baptismal pool
• The church marked 40 years in 2025 and runs free CSEC classes

Before it was a church, 83 Mountain View Avenue in St Andrew was known as Smith’s Myrtle House. It was a brothel serving sailors and military men. In July 2025, as Mountain View New Testament Church of God celebrated 40 years, the Jamaica Observer told the story of how the property changed hands.

Elder Lovell Pottinger, one of the original members from the Clifton New Testament Church of God, said the change came during a violent period. “Due to the violence, they couldn’t do any business so they were pulling out of Mountain View. Clifton bought the land,” he said. The Observer reported that the purchase began in October 1984. The article did not give a price.

“Where the church is at the moment, there was a whorehouse called Smith’s Myrtle House,” Pottinger recalled. The congregation began with a tent crusade in June 1985, backed by Bishop Herro Blair, who was then national evangelism minister. Part of the old building was knocked down to make room for services, and part was reused. “The bathroom inside the old building, that is what we turned into the baptism pool,” Pottinger said. A permanent church was designed in December 1985, and building continued into 1986.

Forty years on, the church is led by Bishop Courtney Beason, who has been pastor for 10 years. “I think 100 per cent that the church was placed in the area by God,” he said. Since 2016 the church has offered free CSEC classes, with about 100 students in each batch.

The story shows a pattern that still matters in Jamaican property. When commercial owners leave a troubled area, churches are often among the few buyers willing to commit. Buying when others are selling, reusing what stands on the site and building in stages let a congregation turn a distressed property into a long-term community asset. For churches and returnees looking at property in inner-city areas today, it shows that patient, mission-led ownership can outlast the conditions that made a site cheap.

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