Perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and surrounded by redwood forests, Wayfarers Chapel has served as a spiritual home for coastal Los Angeles County for nearly 75 years.
The glass chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes was a popular spot for weddings, captivating photographers with its architecture, expansive ocean views, and manicured lawns. However, city officials closed it in February due to severe damage from landslides caused by recent winter storms.
The chapel's leaders announced this week that the chapel, a national historic landmark, will be demolished and put into storage until a new location can be found.
“We are all devastated,” the chapel's executive director, the Rev. Dan Burchett, said at a news conference. “We have been working diligently to do everything we can to save the chapel. However, the landslide is looming and the tragedy is felt by many.”
Ranchos Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank said officials hope to rebuild the chapel in a safe and stable location, either on its current campus or on another site in the city. The project to demolish and eventually rebuild the chapel is expected to take four years.
I recently visited Wayfarers and walked beneath a canopy of redwoods and pines as waves crashed in the distance. The stone walkway was cracked and broken. Approximately 15 glass panels in the chapel were shattered and several structural beams were left leaning precariously.
The chapel is affiliated with the Swedenborgian Church of North America and was built in 1951 in the notoriously tectonic Portuguese Bend. City officials believe the current instability dates back to the 1950s. At the time, workers were clearing land for road construction at the top of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, triggering a long-dormant landslide. It has been on the move ever since, spreading across 675 acres and threatening hundreds of homes, city officials said.
When houses of worship closed in February, more than 175 weddings and special events were canceled. Naomi White's wedding was among them.
“It's been my intention for a long time to get married there,” said White, 28, who grew up in a community near San Pedro and set their wedding date in July. “There's something about how glass brings in light in such a gorgeous way. The chapel combines faith and nature, and being there is a spiritual experience.”
Parts of the ground in the landslide area are moving more than 9 inches per week, impacting important highways and places of worship. Roads are rapidly aging, with new cracks and larger cracks forming, slowing traffic. City officials have allocated more than $14 million to install pumps to remove groundwater that feeds the movement and to repave broken roads.
“Everyone is feeling anxious and nervous,” City Administrator Ara Mifranian told me. “It's very important to be proactive and do what we can now. We've been saying for years that something is going to happen imminently.”
Mikranian said residents have been told that although the ground is moving fairly quickly, no major one-off landslides are expected.
But for Eva Arbuja, who grew up on the street above Wayfarers and has lived in the area for more than 40 years, the thought of a landslide drawing closer by the day still worries her. Cracks line the ceiling and walls of her home, on the southern edge of the landslide. Two nearby homes have been red-tagged as unsafe to live in, and more homes have structural damage.
“It was very difficult,” Arbuja told me, fighting back tears. “We don't know what will happen. ”
And before we leave, we have some good news
ABC 7 reports that a pilot program run by students at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside is teaching kids how to code. This course is taught by an instructor from California Baptist University and takes 8 hours to complete.
Students learn to code by creating their own video games. Instructors are supported by American Sign Language interpreters, some of whom are students from the Center for Deaf Studies.
“Students will be interacting with their instructors, but they'll be learning another language,” said Phil Van Haaster, dean of California Baptist Polytechnic Institute. “And in engineering, computer science is a whole other language.”
thank you for reading. I'll be back tomorrow.
PS it's here today's mini crossword.
Sowmya Kalramangla, Halina Bennett, brianna scalia and Jonathan Wolfe wrote for California Today. He can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com.
To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.