Save Historic Wayfarers Chapel After Landslide

On behalf of Wayfarers Chapel I offer my sincere apologies for the confusion that took place shortly after our GoFundMe Campaign went online last year. You can rest assured that all of your donations did go to us and will continue to be with us. We were not prepared organizationally to field online donations as some of our paperwork with our nonprofit charity had lapsed. After many months and diligent work with getting everything finalized and processed, we are back!

2025 is our year to thrive! Thank you for your patience.

Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart for your generous donations to Wayfarers Chapel last year. Nothing went as planned. The depth and breadth of this landslide complex gave me a healthier respect for geological forces at work as the bottom of the landslide is 330 feet below the surface! This is only a fraction of what we discovered as we looked into all the possible ways to save the beloved and iconic Wayfarers Chapel.

The Chapel was carefully disassembled in 2024 and has been placed into storage until we find a suitable piece of land here on the Palos Verdes Peninsula that will also meet the criteria given for our National Historic Landmark. We want to make sure that the location we choose next will be able to withstand the next 80 years and beyond, inspiring new generations of visitors with this architectural masterpiece.

We encourage a larger conversation with all of you who donated and we would love to get your input and ideas as to how we move forward in this reconstruction process. If Notre Dame can it, we can too! A quarterly newsletter is in works to keep you informed about our plans and process towards rebuilding Wayfarers Chapel at a new location.

As we move forward to rebuilding Wayfarers Chapel 2.0 at a new location here on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, we thank you for your generations donations that will bring back to life a legacy to be cherished by generations yet to be born. Thank you!

What’s happening in Palos Verdes?

Palos Verdes is experiencing an unprecedented landslide during an unexpectedly wet winter. The landslide has claimed dozens of homes. On Thursday, February 15, 2024, Wayfarers Chapel had been affected enough by the landslide that it needed to shutter its doors. The Chapel is honoring a goodwill commitment to refund all wedding reservations. The cost is enormous, and the cost of repairing the Chapel to a degree where it can reopen is even greater.

The importance of the Chapel

Wayfarers Chapel is more than a church building. As a wedding venue, it serves scores of people from California and beyond. Its grounds are a cliffside sanctuary of nature visited by hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe. The chapel is a mid-century masterpiece of Lloyd Wright, completed in 1951 with one of the clearest expressions of organic architecture from the mid-century era.

When you go into Wayfarers Chapel, you feel connected to something greater than you. It defies description and it’s a magical experience for everyone, regardless of faith.

Wayfarers Chapel serves the interfaith community as a grounds for meditation and reflection, from which people escape a busy road and take a break to watch whales and dolphins, or often enter the Chapel to ask questions about the meaning of life. For many, the Chapel is life itself.

Wayfarers Chapel was designated a National Historic Landmark just two months ago, in December 2023. It is devastating to face the possibility of losing such a precious place.

The Importance of Your Donation

Your donation is not just a donation to the Chapel, but a donation to the tens of thousands of people who have been married, baptized, or memorialized here and to the people who call Palos Verdes home. It’s also a commitment to the future of the community. It starts here and we are so grateful for your participation in it.

As you can see from the updated photos, a careful deconstruction of the iconic Chapel is underway and we are confident a new and improved Chapel will manifest soon with all of your prayers, financial support, and encouragement. Thank you everyone for your help in our time of need.

God Bless You!