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The Rev. Jane E. Wood, pastor of Jerusalem-Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church, was all smiles on Friday when she unlocked the door to the newly renovated Cordelia House.

After being boarded up for nearly 10 years, the historic building and former women's shelter on Wood Lane in downtown Rockville is restored and will be open for use again in a couple of weeks, she said.

"It looks better than it ever looked," Wood said.

The church, which owns the building, plans to use it for youth activities, Sunday school classes, meetings and a weekly jazz group, she said.

On Friday, church members, city officials, local developers and residents celebrated the completion of a six-month construction project that restored the two-bedroom house.

A fire in 1999 had burned the house to the point of being deemed a total loss. The church did not have the funds to rehabilitate the building and wanted to demolish it and build a new structure in its place, Wood said. But the city's Historic District Commission did not allow the demolition and decided there was enough of the structure left to restore.

With limited funds, the church kept the building boarded up for nearly 10 years.

In 2006, Wood's prayers were answered when local developers Ross Development and Investment and DANAC Corporation, partners in the Rockville Town Square development, approached Wood about helping to restore the project. She was overwhelmed.

"Praise the Lord!" she recalled saying at the time.

While Ross Development and Investment (RDI) was in the midst of developing Town Square, its main office on the corner of South Washington Street and Wood Lane had a view of Cordelia House.

"Every time I drove out of that garage I would look at it and said, ‘we've got to do something,'" H. Michael Schwartzman, RDI vice president and director of development, said Friday.

"Here we have this $300 million [Town Square] project, we can't have this little building dilapidated and ignored," he said.

So they brought in DANAC Corporation, as well as Minkoff Company Inc., Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., Colonial Electric Co., Madison Mechanical Inc., the Linowes and Blocher law firm, Preservation Maryland and Zalco Realty, who all contributed to the $180,000 project.

"It's easily worth twice as much as what we put into it," Schwartzman said.

Greg Minkoff, vice president of Minkoff Company, said his company offered its services at a "deeply discounted" price. The construction company specializes in reconstruction and restoration caused by disasters.

The entire building was gutted and every charred piece of wood was removed. The building now boasts fresh coats of paint, new appliances, including a refrigerator and gas stove, hardwood floors in the common room, ceramic tiles in the kitchen and bathroom, and carpeting in the bedrooms and stairs.

The house was built in 1912 and the frame of the house is still intact.

The outside of the house looks as close to the original as the builders could get it, Schwartzman said. The porch was rebuilt to look like it used to, down to the scroll designs on the wooden frame. The light on the porch ceiling replicates an old "jelly jar" light with a light bulb within what looks like a glass jar casing. The mailbox "directly mimics" the original.

The house had been heated by a boiler in the basement, Wood said. That has been replaced by a modern central air and heating system.

"While I'm a developer and I'm all in favor of appropriate demolition, some things you just can't tear down," Schwartzman said.