Dismantling of Wayfarers Chapel to begin this week

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. (CNS) -- Wayfarers Chapel, a popular spot for weddings and receptions for decades that was damaged during a barrage of winter storms, will be dismantled starting this week.

The grounds around the chapel have been crumbling off the cliffs in Rancho Palos Verdes and the Palos Verdes Peninsula and into the Pacific Ocean for months.

It has been a wedding, worship and filming destination for 73 years, according to Wayfarers Executive Director Dan Burchett.

"The accelerating destruction of Wayfarers Chapel, caused by the Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex is a looming tragedy that is felt by many,'' Burchett said at a news conference Monday.

The 100-seat, glass chapel opened in 1951 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2023. The natural sanctuary made of Palos Verdes stone, redwood, and glass was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright Jr., a son of the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, as a tree chapel that helps people feel a connection to God and nature, according to the chapel's website.

The chapel is described as "an ecumenical ministry of the Swedenborgian Church and the national memorial to Emanuel Swedenborg,'' the 18th-century scientist and theosopher.

The Wayfarers administration building and two homes in the city's Seaview neighborhood are the only structures in the city that have been red tagged due to land movement following the 2022 and 2023 winter rains, the Daily Breeze is reporting.

City Manager Ara Mihranian said at the news conference the land in some of the landslide areas is now moving as much as 9-inches a week.

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