Save Historic Wayfarers Chapel After Landslide

Your donation will exclusively support activities to stabilize and restore the Chapel. This is an endeavor that will take years and must be done in stages. We are inviting you here to be among the first supporters helping us recover from the devastating landslide of 2024.

This is the official fundraiser supporting the disaster recovery of Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes, one of only a handful of National Historic Landmarks in Southern California. I have been with the Chapel since 2006 and serve as the Director of Ministry.

Contributions from this page support the nonprofit established by Wayfarers Chapel specifically to fund Chapel restoration efforts. Now that this winter’s dramatic landslide has forced our doors closed, this restoration has become a rescue mission.

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.