News the former Trinity Broadcasting Network headquarters in Costa Mesa will become a school recently provided a last opportunity to tour the elaborately decorated campus.

EF Education First, which plans to turn the complex into an international school for English language learners, have said they expect to gut and completely remodel the main building and redesign the grounds.

Network founders Paul and Jan Crouch, who started their prosperous TV ministry in the early 1970s, opened the Costa Mesa headquarters on Bear Street in 1998. Visitors were welcomed to meander the grounds and tour the buildings and collections. For several years a popular bookshop was open. And the massive display of holiday lights shining along the 405 Freeway were known far and wide.

Paul Crouch died in 2013, followed by Jan three years later – and their worldwide ministry sold its distinctive Costa Mesa home base in 2017. The network had struggled with declining revenue and faced reports of apparent family infighting and several lawsuits. Broadcast operations were shifted to Tustin and other locations.

But some hallmarks of the couple’s tenure remain at the Costa Mesa campus, at least until the renovation work begins.

A peek inside the 65,000-square-foot building reveals that although the furniture is gone, evidence of a sumptuous decorating style remains. A grand staircase with ornate gold railings dominates the view at the main building’s glass front doors, and the network’s take on a royal coat of arms is inlaid on the marble floor: two lions rampant flank a shield decorated with a cross and white dove, topped by a jewel-studded crown.

Crystal chandeliers grace what was once a TBN employee dining room, as well as the third-floor building wing that housed Paul Crouch’s offices and personal quarters. Cream-colored draperies trimmed with heavy gold fringe still hang at some windows. Maple wood panels cover the walls of rooms, while mirrors are in abundance elsewhere.

Walls and ceilings are decorated with hand-painted frescoes, some of biblical scenes and others showing chubby cherubs and robed angels playing lyres, trumpets and cymbals. Alcoves that once held sculptures stand vacant.

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Televangelist Jan Crouch dies days after stroke Now-empty fountains surrounded by manicured trees and bushes once led visitors up to the building, and behind it, a separate rotunda where guests were received is ringed by a shallow concrete moat, also dry.

Other features of the TBN campus include a small movie theater and larger auditorium for lectures and performances, and the “Via Dolorosa” tourist attraction (a recreation of Christ’s route through Jerusalem before his crucifixion).

Officials with EF, the English language school, have said they’re working through the city’s approval process and hope to begin construction by the end of the year.