Famed Southern California chapel to be deconstructed as land continues to shift

Months after Wayfarers Chapel was closed indefinitely due to unprecedented shifting of the ground below it, the church’s leadership team has announced plans to disassemble the iconic California landmark.

An update posted to the Wayfarers Chapel website said the decision was made to take the chapel apart in hopes of preserving it for future generations and save it from “irreparable damage.”

The popular wedding chapel, which was designed by famed architect Lloyd Wright in the 1940s, stands among a crowd of trees that overlook Abalone Cove. It has hosted thousands of weddings, including celebrity nuptials, since it opened in 1951.

But its campus in Rancho Palos Verdes has been the site of ongoing landslides and erosion for years, heightening in recent months with homes gobbled up by shifting hillsides and roads buckled by unstable ground.

The chapel and its grounds were closed to the public in February in hopes that the shifting of the land would eventually slow down, but the ground has continued to move by as much as seven inches per week, officials said.

The movement below Wayfarers has caused damage and bent the chapel’s metal framing in both the walls and its ceiling. The majority of the church’s glass panels have fractured, many doors are impossible to open or close, the concrete floor has significant cracks and the underground utilities, including electricity, water and gas, are broken and unusable.

“The chapel will not be able to withstand much more damage before it becomes impossible to preserve,” church officials said.

The church that operates the famed chapel says it will be collaborating with “historic preservation experts” and the National Park Service to carefully deconstruct the chapel to preserve as many materials as possible to hopefully put it back together again in the future.

“Wayfarers is committed to preserving our iconic chapel exactly as it has always been, either on the current site or a similar site close by in Rancho Palos Verdes,” said Wayfarers Executive Director Dan Burchett. “We are taking immediate action to carefully disassemble the chapel’s historic materials as a necessary step in the preservation of the chapel for generations to come.”

Burchett, who is one of the church’s reverends, called the ongoing landslide a “looming tragedy felt by many” and added that the church community was keeping its neighbors, many of whom are facing the threat of losing their homes, in their prayers and thoughts.

Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank said the city would be working alongside Wayfarers to find a suitable place for the chapel to be reassembled. The hope, Cruikshank said, is that the chapel will be able to stay in the city its called home since its construction.

Disassembly efforts began this week and those tasked with taking apart the National Historic Landmark will document and catalog all salvageable parts before transporting them to a safe location until the chapel can be reassembled.

“So many of the chapel’s original materials that were part of the Lloyd Wright design cannot be replicated today,” said Katie Horak, Principal of Architectural Resources Group, the company leading the disassembly and preservation efforts. “With each passing day, more of this material is lost or irreparably damaged. Our team is working against the clock to document and move these building components to safety so that they can be put back together again.”

A verified GoFundMe page set up to help cover some of the costs of the chapel’s restoration has so far raised more than $70,000. Officials estimate that disassembly alone will cost between $300,00 and $500,000.

A timeline for if and when the chapel will be reassembled is unknown at this time.