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Thomas Aquinas College's Chapel a Masterpiece of "Beauty, Grandeur, Permanence and Tradition"

Religous Life
July/August 2008

In its quest to complete the master plan that has been in place since Thomas Aquinas College moved to its current 131-acre campus in Santa Paula in 1978, the Catholic college is now working on what it considers perhaps the most important building of all.

The Chapel of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity is currently under construction, with a price tag of more than $22 million.

"We wanted to do something really grand," said Dr. Thomas Dillon, president of Thomas Aquinas College. "I want the chapel to have four distinguishing marks," Dr. Dillon said. "Beauty, grandeur, permanence and tradition."

Despite the grandeur that the chapel strives for, Dr. Dillon said he still had to restrict the design to stay within a budget that the school could afford. He noted that the rising cost of concrete and steel in the last two years also had an effect on his plans. Dr. Dillon chose to focus on permanent features of the structure that could not be changed later.

Design features such as a 135-foot bell tower were used to make the nearly 15,000-square-foot chapel stand out against its surrounding buildings, which only the campus library matches in footprint.

Dr. Dillon said that although the library was built first, it was designed in preparation for the coming chapel.

"When we designed the library, we stepped the façade back so that when we built the chapel, it would be more prominent," he said.

Duncan Stroik, a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame and a principal of Duncan G. Stroik Architect, a firm specializing in ecclesiastical design, was chosen as the architect for the chapel. HMH General Contractors was chosen as the contractor for the chapel, as well as for most of the buildings on campus.

Imported Italian marble, columns with Corinthian capitals, an 89-foot cupola, a vaulted ceiling, a baldachino-or canopy over the altar-and detail on the front façade are all distinguishing features that help to give prominence to the chapel.

While the chapel's design has a foundation in Spanish-style architecture, Dillon said it also implements elements of Roman architecture to "elevate" the building to "follow the tradition of great Catholic architecture."

In preparation for the chapel's design, Dr. Dillon took a seminar on sacred architecture in which he visited churches in Rome and Florence, and has also visited many famous Spanish missions, universities in the United States, basilicas in St. Louis, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., Saint Patrick's in New York, as well as churches in Tuscany and Spain.

Dr. Dillon said as he got a sense of the breadth of possibilities for design, he found he liked the "simplicity and elegance" of the Romanesque style.

Dr. Dillon also takes pride in the fact that plans for the chapel have been blessed by Pope John Paul II, as well as Pope Benedict XVI.

Thus far, the school has raised about $16 million towards building the chapel, including a lead gift of $10 million from the Dan Murphy Foundation:

"Now comes the hard part," Dr. Dillon said, in raising the remainder of the funds. "The next step will be more difficult but well worth the effort."

The college is focusing fundraising efforts with both foundations and individuals, and had small events scheduled throughout California and the country.

Recently completed on campus is a roughly $7 million faculty center. Once the chapel is complete, the school will have three buildings left to build of the fifteen buildings on the master plan.

Thomas Aquinas College was founded in 1971 and now has twenty fully professed nuns, forty-six ordained priests and forty seminarians among its alumni, though the college is not a seminary. The college, which is led by thirty-seven faculty members, currently enrolls 360 students from forty-two states and around the world. Through 2002, forty-five percent of the students had moved on to graduate or professional school.

This is an update of an article written by Barbara Pearson that was originally published in Pacific Coast Business Times. Reprinted with permission. If you would like an 8-minute DVD containing an explanation and "virtual reality" tour of the chapel, contact Anne S. Forsyth at Thomas Aquinas College at 800-634-9797.