Until earlier this year, there were no known paintings of Stone’s Folly — something that seems hard to believe, given that the mansion that once stood in Topeka holds worldwide religious significance.

Credit Topeka artist Tim Bauer for taking it upon himself to make an exquisite pastel and mixed-media painting that shows the ornate, castle-like mansion in all its glory.

Stone’s Folly was located from around 1887 to 1901 in what is now the 3600 block of S.W. 17th. From October 1900 to July 1901, it housed the Rev. Charles Fox Parham’s Bethel Bible College, where historians say the modern-day Pentecostal movement began.

From its origins in Stone’s Folly, there are today upward of 1 billion Pentecostals around the world. And though the movement caught fire in 1906 at the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, historians insist that Topeka was the real starting point.

Knowing of no paintings that existed of Stone’s Folly, save for a colorized version of a black-and-white photo, Bauer took on the project and went to extraordinary lengths to give it historic authenticity.

His painting sets the theme for the Stone’s Folly Art Fair, which will be held as part of the first Oktoberfest event set for 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, at Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church, 3601 S.W. 17th.

Bauer’s painting will be auctioned at the fair, with proceeds going to Most Pure Heart of Mary church.

To be sure, it is only fitting that a painting of Stone’s Folly is the centerpiece of an art fair at Most Pure Heart of Mary church, whose rectory sits on the former foundation of Stone’s Folly.

When contemplating how to go about making a painting of Stone’s Folly, Bauer had only a black-and-white photograph taken around 1901 to use as a reference point.

He decided to do some first-hand research, so he walked around the south side of Most Pure Heart of Mary’s main building to where Stone’s Folly once stood, and where the church’s rectory is now located.

As he walked, Bauer said, he found some artifacts that he is convinced came from the Stone’s Folly mansion, which burned down on Dec. 6, 1901, a few months after members of Parham’s Bethel Bible College had been unceremoniously kicked out of the building.

Apparently, the owner of Stone’s Folly didn’t like the worldwide press that was coming to Parham and his followers after they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit on Jan. 1, 1901. They began speaking in tongues after a prayer meeting in one of the mansion’s towers.

After they were booted out of the mansion, Parham and his followers shook the dust off their feet. On the way out, Parham predicted the mansion would burn to the ground, which it did about five months later — after it was transformed into a brothel.

Parham and his group moved to the Kansas City area, then to Texas, where he met a black evangelist, William Seymour, who would take the Pentecostal message to Los Angeles. Seymour would be a leading force in the 1906 Azusa Street revival, which kicked the Pentecostal movement into high gear.

But, as one historian told me in the late 1990s, “if there hadn’t been a Topeka, there wouldn’t have been an Azusa Street.”

As he walked in the area where Stone’s Folly once stood, on the south side of Most Pure Heart of Mary’s main building, Bauer came across what he believed were brick and stone and glass that survived the mansion’s fire.

“I was walking around outside the rectory one day and I stubbed my toe on a brick,” Bauer said. “I pulled out the brick. Sure enough, it was fire-damaged, and it was very, very soft from being buried so long.”

He was sure he had literally stumbled across a part of what was left of Stone’s Folly — which got its name from the fact that the mansion’s owner, Erastus R. Stone, never finished the building because of a lack of money.

Bauer said he kept looking and found “a bunch of other bricks” buried at the site. He said he “pulled them out and cleaned them up. I ground them into fine powder and used them as the actual paint.

“So,” he said, pointing to his painting, “this is the actual color of the mansion itself. I used four different bricks and got four different colors, and that gave me the shadows and the light highlights.”

The painting can be viewed until the art fair in the Soho Interiors location at 3129 S.W. Huntoon, in the Westboro Mart.

The Stone’s Folly Art Fair is a part of the Most Pure Heart of Mary Oktoberfest. The idea for the twin events was hatched about three years ago when Bauer and neighbor Tom Elwood were discussing having a community event at the church with an Oktoberfest theme.

Elwood said he hadn’t heard about Stone’s Folly at that time, as he wasn’t a native of Topeka. But when Bauer told him the story, it seemed like the perfect theme for the art fair.