Famous Wayfarers Chapel to be taken apart in Rancho Palos Verdes

The Wayfarers Chapel will be taken apart this week after it was damaged during multiple storms this past winter.

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

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

The chapel 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 chapel hosted its last wedding on Feb. 18, 2024.  

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 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.