Taylor Memorial Chapel
Colorado
A woman built an entire pueblo-style church in the pine forest and worshipped in it alone for thirteen years.
Alice Bemis Taylor had a chapel built in the Ponderosa pines in nineteen twenty-nine, as a memorial to her husband. It stood on the grounds of her summer home. And it was hers alone. A private place of worship, used by one woman until she died in nineteen forty-two. The building looks like a mission church from northern New Mexico, set down in the Colorado forest. Stuccoed walls that lean inward. Log vigas across the ceiling. Above those vigas, a herringbone pattern woven from aspen saplings. Flagstone underfoot. A walled courtyard outside, near a ravine. The bell came from an old mission church in New Mexico. Two storeys, entered through double carved wooden doors, with a spiral staircase up to more seating. Inside, a sculptor named Eugenie Shonnard carved a reredos twenty feet tall showing seven saints. She also made the altar, the pulpit and the lectern. Two years after Taylor's death the whole thing was handed to a church conference.
This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
it was her private place of worship until 1942 when she died
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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