Following a temporary location started with help from Roy Gustafson and her other friends at "the Baptist Church on 22nd Avenue South" in St. Petersburg in 1952, Ruth Munce founded Grace Livingston Hill Memorial School in 1953, naming it after her mother, an author of more than 100 Christian-themed romance novels.

[2] Munce felt called by God to establish this private educational facility because no other Christian school existed in Pinellas County, so she purchased a 13-acre (5.3 ha) site, an old chicken farm off Seminole Boulevard on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, Florida.

[5] In 1996, Moody Bible Institute decided that their future focus would be solely on higher education, so the college amicably parted ways with Keswick.

Moody sold its conference center property, established in 1962 on Lake Kersky, including a 48-room lodge, a 550-seat chapel and three homes, to Keswick for $600,000.

As of 1996[update], Moody continues to own and operate WKES from studios on the school's campus, although the station's city of license is now officially Lakeland.

[9] In 1999, school officials announced their expansion plans to add a two-story 18,690-square-foot (1,736 m2) building that would house administrative offices, classrooms and a state-of-the-art media center.

[10] Despite the false start, Keswick embarked on a three-year capital campaign called Foundations for the Future in 2003, the fiftieth anniversary of the school.