Willard Chapel

Friday June 14 (cont'd)

One of the places that Marcie recommended we see was Willard Chapel in Auburn.  It was built in 1892-94 it was designed and handcrafted entirely by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company of New york.  It is the only complete and unaltered Tiffany designed religion interior known to exist in the world.  

There are 14 opalescent windows like this. 

Plus all of the floors are mosaic tile.

And Moorish style chandeliers.

Willard Chapel was part of the Auburn Theological Seminary where generations of Presbyterian scholars, theologians, ministers and missionaries came for religious education.  In 1939 the Seminar relocated to New York City due to lack of funding and  problems in recruiting students.  It is still there today.

This stained glass window depicts Jesus sustaining Peter on the water.

Tiffany developed a technique called Favrile, which allowed for a draped look to garments, and also semi transparent glass which eliminated the need to apply paint to the surface.

The chapel was purchased by the Seventh Day Adventists, who carefully maintained it. In 1989 it  was in danger of being dismantled, with the Tiffany glass being sold off.  Fortunately, a fund raising effort was undertaken to buy the property and it is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

We were going to take a tour of the Chapel to learn more, but the tour was 45 minutes long, and we weren't sure we had the time.  But the paramount reason for not taking the tour, even though we had already paid for it, was that there was a piano tuner there.  This is a 19th century tracker organ, one of the largest and best-preserved ones in the state.  The acoustics in this chapel are marvelous, but after he hit the same keys about 100 times each, in the loudest and most pronounced way possible, the reverberations were driving us insane, and we hadn't even started the tour.  So we slipped out the door.