The Brief

Weeks into an ambitious plan to disassemble the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes, officials are peeling the building apart like an onion as the land movement that spawned the work continues to accelerate.

City officials say the land where the chapel is located has been moving around 7 inches a week for the past few months. That’s compared to the period of October 2021 to October 2022, when the land moved at a rate of around 0.08 inches a week.

That acceleration has fueled a sense of earnestness regarding the disassembly and storage of the iconic building, which is beloved by thousands, many of whom have personal connections to the property.

When Arnold V. Strong was courting his now wife, she asked him to turn into the Wayfarers Chapel one day on the way to work. When he asked her why this particular place, she replied, “I just figured if anyone ever wanted to marry me, they'd marry me here.”

The couple got married at the chapel five years ago.

“It does make you feel very crestfallen, very heartbroken,” Strong said of the building’s deterioration from the shifting land.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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The process of disassembling the chapel 

When the land movement forced the closure of the chapel in February, Megan Turner, project manager with S. L. Leonard & Associates, said the team looked at disassembly as a way to preserve the chapel’s National Historic Landmark status. As each element is carefully removed, they’re cataloged before being stored at an undisclosed location in Rancho Palos Verdes. The painstaking process will allow the Wayfarers Chapel to be reassembled to much of its former glory.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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“It's really going in reverse order of how this thing was originally constructed and just making sure that each component is removed in the appropriate order so that all the pieces behind it are in the best condition possible,” Turner said.

The process began around two weeks ago with the exterior wood doors, the gold leaf-plated glass and original hardware removed and salvaged. The blue tile roof at the colonnade has also been disassembled and crated.

Workers have also started removing the uncracked glass panes by hand.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Next week, workers will begin assembling custom built cradles to support the wood vents in an upright position. Turner said the 16 arches that make up the vertical archway system that supports the chapel and creates “that incredible tree chapel feeling” will be moved off site by mid-June. The vents will be inspected on a quarterly basis to make sure the material does not become brittle.

Despite the land movement and the chapel’s proximity to the ocean, Turner said there’s no historical element of the chapel that can’t be salvaged because of the upkeep church officials have maintained over the years.

The redwood grove around the chapel

Some of the trees in the redwood grove that surrounds Wayfarers Chapel had to be removed to accommodate the disassembly.

The trees that had to be cut down, Turner said, will be used to create objects and sculptures that will be sold off to support the disassembly and reconstruction process.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Disassembly is estimated to cost around $500,000 for now, with some of the funds coming from a GoFundMe started by church officials. Other funding is coming from money put aside by church officials for restoration work. Turner said that figure could go up because of the offsite storage fees the chapel is incurring.

Next steps and reconstruction 

Rebuilding the chapel is set to cost around $20 million, Turner said.

After disassembly is complete, crews will assess the grounds to see if the church can be reconstructed on the original site. But with the speed at which the ground is moving, the odds aren’t good.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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“We are currently looking at a number of sites and working with the city of Rancho Palos Verdes to find locations,” Turner said. “Nothing is ever going to compare to our current location, but we are finding some that are as closely comparable as possible to be able to create, to recreate the same feeling.”

Spiritual connections 

Reverend David Brown, the lead chapel minister at Wayfarers Chapel, is holding out hope for “the healing of the land, the healing of the entire landslide complex, the healing of our planet.”

The chapel, he said, has transcended its denomination of the Swedenborgian Church and Christianity and has served as a place of meditation and reflection for people from all walks of life. But, he said, the land movement is forcing another realization.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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“We're re-realizing what's truly important, which is the church individual, which is each body temple ... is still tended for and we're still together as a community and that part remains intact and is incredibly valuable for the local community that has been gathering for so long at Wayfarers Chapel,” Brown said.

Beyond the Rose Bowl and historic bungalows, Pasadena has stranger tales to tell. David Kalbeitzer has been seeking out those stories where rocket science meets the occult and ghosts haunt the city’s grandest buildings.

For Kalbeitzer, a Disney executive who investigates the paranormal in his free time, his fascination with the city’s mysterious side started when he bought a Victorian north of Old Town.

He sensed a spirit at the open house a dozen years ago and took it as a reason to move his family to Pasadena. Then he started learning the city’s history.

David Kalbeitzer, a paranormal investigator from Pasadena, is giving a talk about the city's strange history Saturday night in Old Town.

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Courtesy of David Kalbeitzer

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“I realized, ‘Oh, this place called us just as much as we were looking for it,’” he said.

On Saturday night, he’s sharing the lore he’s collected at Mesmer Mesmer an Old Town shop and event space. While the event is full, there’s a waitlist, and more talks featuring Kalbeitzer are in the works.

A city of ghost stories 

Ask Kalbeitzer about haunted Pasadena, and the list stretches from alleyways to the Colorado Street Bridge to Castle Green, the turreted former hotel overlooking Central Park.

“The Pasadena Playhouse theater is, you know, very haunted,” he added.

He says theatergoers have reported hearing disembodied voices.

Theatergoers over the years have described hearing voices and seeing apparitions at the Pasadena Playhouse.

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Jeff Lorch

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Courtesy of Pasadena Playhouse

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“And you look, and there’s no one there, or apparitions that have been seen sort of standing in the corner, and then you walk up, and they kind of disappear like shadowy figures,” he said.

As for the spirit that helped draw him to his current Pasadena home?

Kalbeitzer says she’s still around — and his psychic friend Michael Kouri shared her name: Dolores.

“It’s actually haunted by a very kind ghost that looks out for the house, protects my family and has been able to activate our alarm,” he said.

Having a Dolores in the house might send some people running, but Kalbeitzer said he grew up in a haunted house in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

And when his family moved to Charleston, South Carolina, a teenage Kalbeitzer started seeking out places known for paranormal activity.

Rocket science, ritual magic and mind-reading

Having lived in different neighborhoods in L.A., Kalbeitzer says there’s something uniquely otherworldly about Pasadena — and it goes beyond ghost stories.

He said the city has an energy that draws people exploring the unknown, perhaps most famously Jack Parsons.

The rocket pioneer who helped launch the Jet Propulsion Laboratory also practiced ritual magic at his Pasadena home with the likes of L. Ron Hubbard before he founded Scientology.

“Many people call it the occult," Kalbeitzer said. "I don’t know that I fully subscribe to that, but there is spiritualism and occult mixed in there."

Then there was Upton Sinclair, the muckraking author of The Jungle, whose interests while living in Pasadena extended to telepathy and séances.

Upton Sinclair, pictured with his wife Mary Craig Sinclair in 1935, several years after he published a book examining her reported telepathy.

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Los Angeles Times via Wikimedia Commons

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In 1930, Sinclair published Mental Radio, a book about experiments in mind-reading. Albert Einstein provided a preface. Yes, that Einstein, who would spend the following winter at Caltech expanding on the theories of relativity and cosmology.

“It’s the craziest mixture of things that were happening at that time and all of it at the same time,” Kalbeitzer said.

A presence in the shop 

The event couldn’t have found a more appropriate venue.

Since opening five months ago in Old Town, Mesmer Mesmer has embraced the dark and mysterious, offering tarot and crystal readings and hosting events on subjects such as hip-hop’s relationship with ghosts.

Tyke O'Brien opened her shop Mesmer Mesmer earlier this year to create a third space and offer books and esoterica alongside clothing.

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Tyke O'Brien

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At that event, a medium told owner Tyke O’Brien she could sense a presence in the shop, which formerly housed a bridal store.

“She goes, ‘Do you ever feel it?’ And I’m like, ‘I am such a bummer,” O’Brien recounted. “I wish I could say yes."

The same can be said for this writer who’s lived and worked in and around Pasadena for years without so much as a brush with the otherworldly.

Kalbeitzer, on the other hand, reports supernatural encounters all around town.

“Everyone has the ability to have those experiences," he said. "But I do think how you see yourself in the world has a lot more to do with it, and whether you want to have those experiences."

Los Angeles officials expect construction of a fence around MacArthur Park will start in November and continue through fall 2027. 

At a community meeting Thursday night at MacArthur Park Elementary School, officials said fence installation is now expected to continue through fall 2027, overshooting the previously announced spring 2027 completion date.

Thursday’s meeting highlighted the divide over the city’s plan to fence off MacArthur Park, with tensions rising during public comment. The Los Angeles Police Department says the fence will make drug enforcement easier, while some in the community who volunteer around the park questioned whether it will improve safety enough to justify the cost.

The city has allocated $2.3 million for the project, but officials have not said whether that will cover the full cost.

Installation of the green metal fence around the park’s perimeter is expected to begin in November and take about a year. A second phase, adding decorative elements to the fence, is planned for fall and winter 2027. Officials said the schedule could change because of weather or other unforeseen circumstances.

The park is expected to remain open during construction.

Capt. Ben Fernandes with the LAPD’s Rampart Division said the fence would create a barrier along Alvarado Street and other areas where officers have seen people using narcotics. That would allow police to focus more of their enforcement efforts inside the park, he said.

“So if people are going deeper into the park to use, that’ll make it easier for us to go in and do enforcement on them and arrest them for that use,” Fernandes said. 

MacArthur Park will close every night once an 8-foot-tall fence goes up around the green space, with Los Angeles police officers sweeping the park for encampments and people sleeping there before the gates shut. The Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners approved the plan Thursday.

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LA Recreation and Parks

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“I’ve been an officer for 29 years, and I’ve always known I can go buy drugs there, and I did as a narcotics officer. So what I’m saying is, we are trying to make it not convenient,” he added. 

Fernandes also said the city plans to enhance the park’s existing camera network. LAPD officers and Los Angeles Park Rangers will be able to monitor the cameras from their respective stations, he said. City officials are still evaluating whether additional cameras will be needed to address blind spots in the park after construction is complete.

Ariana Walker, who visits MacArthur Park every Saturday with a group of friends who pool their own resources to distribute food and hygiene kits, questioned whether the city had shown that the fence would improve safety and how much it would cost to maintain.

“The fence is a $2.3 million fence at the base level,” she said. “And they haven’t given us any indication of how much more it’s going to cost for upkeep, to keep anybody safe. There’s no conclusive evidence that a fence is going to stop crime the way that they’re suggesting.”

The meeting grew tense when John Alle, a local property owner whose family owns the building that houses Langer’s Delicatessen across the street from the park, objected to having his comments read from a written comment card rather than speaking directly to officials. Alle has been a vocal critic of the city’s response to drug activity and public safety concerns around MacArthur Park.

He was allowed to comment during the meeting and said the city needs to take a tougher approach to drug use and sales around the park. 

“We see knife attacks at all hours of the day. It’s out of control. And it’s not gotten any better,” he said. “We want to bring it back to where it was 15 or 20 years ago.”

Los Angeles officials expect construction of a fence around MacArthur Park will start in November and continue through fall 2027.

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Alle pointed to public events at the park, including an upcoming Día de los Muertos celebration and a Labor Day weekend picnic hosted by Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman as positive developments for the space. But he added those events do not reflect conditions throughout the park.

Officials also outlined other planned improvements, including restoring access through the tunnels connecting the park’s north and south sides, making accessibility upgrades and providing free Wi-Fi for parkgoers. 

Residents who want to provide input on the fence’s decorative elements can email admin@themorcosgroup.com or call (310) 479-4727 for more information.

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