For a Beloved Architectural Landmark, It’s about Finding Peace

I believe in the improbable and unexpected. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen and experienced one too many unexplainable things in my life to believe otherwise. And maybe it’s also in line with the optimist in me—always grasping on to hope. Sometimes it’s all we have. 

Growing up in Palos Verdes, I considered myself so lucky to be surrounded by such natural beauty with renowned gems including Wayfarers Chapel—affectionately known as “The Glass Church” or “Tree Chapel”—a beacon for wayfarers of all walks of life. I attended a friend’s wedding at the chapel and spent many weekends sitting in the pews, staring up at the redwood trees through the glass and marveling at the work of Lloyd Wright, who completed the structure in 1951.

When I learned a few months ago that Wayfarers Chapel—a National Historic Landmark as of December 2023—would be closing its current site due to the Portuguese Bend landslide and would be disassembled, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. With time, I’ve come to realize that the closure and uncertainty are not forever, only temporary. I’ve learned that so many stewards of the chapel are coming together from far and wide to preserve and rebuild, and every possible painstaking step will be taken to ensure the safety and security of each salvageable architectural piece. 

And I understand the sacredness of this symbolic chapel can never be taken away. Perhaps no one knows this better than the chapel’s former lead minister Rev. Harvey A. Tafel, who spent more than four decades there and was at the cornerstone dedication in 1949 when he was age 8. 

“I’ve witnessed it time after time,” says Tafel, who officiated approximately 10,000 weddings there. “People would come around the corner and walk into the chapel, and they would just stop—almost in a sense of awe. It’s so wonderful to me. And that’s something that we need in our lives: a place where we can go for that sense of spiritual depth and renewal.”

Rev. Dan Burchett, the chapel’s executive director with a 24-year tenure in various roles, also affirms its wonders. “The chapel in all its splendor for 73 years has been the best reminder to me, everywhere I go, that there is this majestic sense of the eternal and divine that’s not just relegated to a chapel, a famous chapel, the jewel of the Peninsula,” he says. “It represents something far beyond the material of its property. So I think there’s something about this process—we’re going to see something miraculous in its rebirth.”

In the meantime, I’m clinging to the chapel’s magical powers, and I’m right alongside its supporters on the path to its reopening.