Wayfarers, Instagram-famous L.A. chapel, to be completely taken apart

By Grace TooheyStaff Writer

May 13, 2024 6:46 PM PT

Each day, landslide damage at the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes worsens.

More windows in the famous glass chapel shatter. Metal framing along its walls and ceiling further torque. New fissures open across the parking lot.

The landslide beneath the chapel — mostly manageable for decades — has accelerated to unprecedented rates and is likely to upend the possibility of a future for the chapel at its idyllic seaside site.

Chapel leaders announced on Monday their plans to begin taking the structure apart. The hope, they said, is to preserve what they can of the national historic landmark, spiritual sanctuary and well-known wedding venue.

“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,” Dan Burchett, the executive director of Wayfarers Chapel, said in a statement. “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.”

Burchett and his team have been searching for a nearby location — on more stable ground — where the chapel could be rebuilt in as close to its original form as possible. He said they would also continue to monitor the landslide to see whether the chapel could be reassembled on-site — but that continues to look less feasible by the day as the land movement has intensified.

In February, Wayfarers closed its doors, worried about safety due to the landslide. Last month, city officials red-tagged the administration building that sits not far from Wayfarers Chapel, and as of Monday, all the underground services for the site, including electricity, water, sewer and gas, were broken and unusable, officials said.

The 100-seat glass-and-wood sanctuary was built in 1951, designed by architect Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Disassembly, carried out by preservation design firm Architectural Resources Group, will be a tedious process, Burchett said. This week, the team is preparing the property for the large-scale project, and Burchett expected work to begin next week.

“The chapel will not be able to withstand much more damage before it becomes impossible to preserve,” Wayfarers officials said in a news release. “It has been determined that the immediate deconstruction of the chapel is the safest and most viable preservation action to take at this time and will prevent further irreparable damage to the chapel’s structure and materials.”

Many of the chapel’s building materials are no longer available, Burchett said, so deconstruction allows the structure to keep its historical designation and paves the way for “a future careful and thoughtful rebuilding of the chapel.”

“With each passing day, more of this material is lost or irreparably damaged,” said Katie Horak, a principal at Architectural Resources Group. With deconstruction set to begin, “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.”

She said some of the irreplaceable parts include old-growth-redwood glulam ( laminated timber bonded with adhesive), blue roof tile and the elegant network of steel that holds the windows together.

The city’s latest report on the historical landslide complex, which affects about 700 acres on both sides of Palos Verdes Drive South in Rancho Palos Verdes, found that land movement in March and April had further accelerated, almost two times the movement that was recorded from January through March — when leaders were already sounding the alarms about the situation. In some of the fastest-moving areas, the hillside was shifting as much as 9 inches per week, the city’s geologist found.

“Wayfarers Chapel has been a treasured part of our community for generations,” Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank said in a statement. “The city ... is committed to working with Wayfarers Chapel to ensure it can be quickly rebuilt on a geologically safe location somewhere within the city, if possible.”

Burchett said the deconstruction and closing of the campus is estimated to cost $300,000 to $500,000 — well beyond the almost $70,000 raised through an online fundraiser that was started after the chapel had to close and cease most of its operations.

The full rebuild is estimated to cost nearly $20 million, Burchett said.

The nonprofit has about $5 million in savings reserved for that effort, revenue primarily from weddings at the site. Couples would pay more than $5,000 to marry at the highly sought-after Instagram-famous chapel.

Burchett said Wayfarers would need additional community support, and is planning a fundraising drive for the rest.