Our History

In 1835, a small group of people planned and built a church which came to be incorporated as “The North Castle Zion Methodist Episcopal Church of Westchester County.” Fifty years later, it was sold and replaced by a second church called the Kensico Methodist Church, which grew and prospered. As a result of their mission outreach, a small chapel was built in 1900 in the railroad community of Valhalla at the southern end of Kensico Lake.

With the construction of the Kensico Dam, the entire village of Kensico, including the Methodist Church, was completely demolished and disappeared under the floodwaters in January 1917. On a clear summer day you can still see the steeple from atop of the Dam's walkway. The stained glass windows were preserved and given to a new church in North White Plains, now known to as Castle Heights. The church bell was given to the chapel in Valhalla, which was enlarged and dedicated in 1912 as the Valhalla Methodist Church.

Ground was broken for our present building in 1964 on land purchased from New York City, and in 1968, we became the Valhalla United Methodist Church through a merger with the Evangelical United Brethren.

The physical destruction of the old Kensico Methodist Church, our mother church, produced two new churches ours which survives today and the recently disbanded Castle Heights Church.