There have been rumors for months that the San Diego Temple will be shutting down. The beautiful stained-glass windows need to be repaired. Some are broken and others leak. Lisa even told me that there are what looks like bullet holes in some of them. Well on April 17th the church made this announcement.
The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced the San Diego California Temple — the Church’s 45th temple and operating since 1993 — will close in July 2023 for extensive renovations.
So it is now official that the temple will be closing down but there are a whole new set of rumors about for how long and what they will be doing. While nothing has been announced, the most common rumors are the glass windows will be repaired and that the cafeteria will be repurposed. Shortly after the operation of the temple returned to normal following Covid, it was announced that all temple cafeterias worldwide will be closed. That was a loss, but I understand that it was an unnecessary expense.
So, the official last day for the temple will be July 31 but that is a Monday and temples are not open Mondays or Sundays, so the actual last day is Saturday July 29th.
The San Diego Temple is very precious to me, and we have been so fortunate to have it with us from the time we moved here in 1992. They closed the Cardston temple shortly before we moved from Alberta and rededicated it on June 22, 1991. Kira was able to go to that rededication with us. I think you were supposed to be twelve but since she was almost twelve, we snuck her in.
The renovations for that temple were wonderful. It originally had a water fountain in front of it, beautiful tile floors and curved benches in the Telestial room.
The water fountain had been filled in with dirt and made into a flower bed because the brutal west winds kept the fountain filled with leaves. The tile floors had been carpeted over and I think some of the murals may have been painted over as well. My dad was the engineer at the temple during all of this too, so we got detailed reports.
Many miracles took place during the renovation of Cardston Temple. The carpets were removed, and the beautiful tile floors were restored. When the curved wooden benches were removed, they had been sold and decades later every single bench had been tracked down and donated back to the temple. They wanted to add a new entry way into the temple but the quarry where the original granite had been secured had been shut down. Fortunately, when they built the temple the scraps and excess granite had been dumped in some farmers field just outside of town. This farmer had kept the pile of granite and there was just enough left to build the new entry way.
They designed the entry way to cover the original water fountain which is now operational inside the new entry way out of the nasty winds.
Dad managed to find the original beautiful custom light fixtures in the temple basement so those were refurbished and reinstalled.
So we attended the rededication of the Cardston temple in June of 1991, moved to San Diego in July of 1992 and attended the dedication of the San Diego Temple in April of 1993. We were blessed.
I remember one of the first fast Sundays after we moved here, they asked us in Sacrament Meeting to fast for the temple because they didn’t have enough parking for the expected attendance. Shortly after that fast, the office building just north of the temple went bankrupt and the church bought it. That office building has a parking structure that borders the temple parking lot so they then cut an opening into the parking structure from the temple parking lot. During the day the parking structure is used for the office building but in the evening when the temple has the greatest need for parking, office building is closed, they open the gates to the parking structure and it is used by the temple. The perfect solution but I do feel bad at times that we fasted the office building into bankruptcy.
We were also told that Brigham Young had once prophesied that in the last days there would be “a temple by the sea with a garden on the roof”. This is a lousy picture of the Atrium, but you can see how beautiful it is. While the temple is about a mile from the beach, I think one could say it is “by” the sea and while the atrium isn’t technically “on the roof”, there is nothing but open sky above it so I choose to believe that this temple is a fulfillment of Brigham Youngs prophecy.
Another story that we were told about the San Diego temple is that the architects were a Catholic couple. A husband-and-wife team. I found that both sad and amazing at the same time. It is sad that they can’t go into the temple and admire the wonderful work that they did.
The San Diego temple has this beautiful grand staircase that goes from the dressing rooms up to the endowment rooms and then on up to the sealing rooms. It is completely unsupported and free standing, and it is gorgeous. We were told that in the original design there was supposed to be a water fountain in the center of the staircase at the bottom. This end of the temple is next to the I-5 freeway and the water fountain would drown out the freeway noise.
While the road noise is clearly audible it isn’t a distraction, but that fountain would be amazing. Apparently, the fountain was cut from the plans because the cost had gone so far over budget.
It seems like most modern temples have a theme. The Calgary Alberta temple has heads of wheat throughout the temple. We were able to tour the Payson Temple and it has a theme of peach trees from the local peach orchards. In fact, I just read that thirty-nine of the temples adopt a theme from the local culture. While I don’t know for sure, but I believe the San Diego Temple may have been the first to use such a theme throughout the temple. The eight-sided star is found all through the temple. While it wasn’t by intent, it turns out that the eight-sided star was the seal of Melchizedek. I think that is very cool.
The original design included a large reflection pool where the large lawn is currently. The temple was built during a nasty drought, and they decided that it would look bad to build such a large water feature. They decided to make it into a lawn. While I would have loved a reflection pool, there have been thousands of great wedding pictures on that lawn.
I wondered for decades if these stories I had heard about the temple were all true but then several years ago while we were participating in an empty nesters Family Home Evening, one of our meetings was a presentation by William S Lewis, the architect of San Diego Temple. He gave a wonderful presentation about the temple and then afterwards during a Q&A I asked him about all these rumors. He confirmed that they were all true.
The rumor that the architects were a Catholic couple were only partly true, he employed Dennis & Shelly Hyndman to work with him. They were devout Roman Catholics. They were quite sad that after the temple was dedicated, they would never again be able to go inside. If they are still alive and if they haven’t since joined the church, then it looks like they will get a chance to go see their beautiful temple during this next open house.
He told me that the eight-pointed star had no meaning when he chose to use it as a theme throughout the temple, he has since learned that it was a symbol of Melchizedek, and he loves that connection.
So, the temple will be closed for an undisclosed length of time. People are saying it could be as long as two years or more. I will miss our temple, but it will give us a good chance to visit the many nearby temples. Newport Beach, Redlands, Los Angeles and probably even Mesa and Gilbert. I also want to make a trip down to Tijuana to attend that temple.
So it is now official that the temple will be closing down but there are a whole new set of rumors about for how long and what they will be doing. While nothing has been announced, the most common rumors are the glass windows will be repaired and that the cafeteria will be repurposed. Shortly after the operation of the temple returned to normal following Covid, it was announced that all temple cafeterias worldwide will be closed. That was a loss, but I understand that it was an unnecessary expense.
So, the official last day for the temple will be July 31 but that is a Monday and temples are not open Mondays or Sundays, so the actual last day is Saturday July 29th.
The renovations for that temple were wonderful. It originally had a water fountain in front of it, beautiful tile floors and curved benches in the Telestial room.
The water fountain had been filled in with dirt and made into a flower bed because the brutal west winds kept the fountain filled with leaves. The tile floors had been carpeted over and I think some of the murals may have been painted over as well. My dad was the engineer at the temple during all of this too, so we got detailed reports.
Many miracles took place during the renovation of Cardston Temple. The carpets were removed, and the beautiful tile floors were restored. When the curved wooden benches were removed, they had been sold and decades later every single bench had been tracked down and donated back to the temple. They wanted to add a new entry way into the temple but the quarry where the original granite had been secured had been shut down. Fortunately, when they built the temple the scraps and excess granite had been dumped in some farmers field just outside of town. This farmer had kept the pile of granite and there was just enough left to build the new entry way.
Dad managed to find the original beautiful custom light fixtures in the temple basement so those were refurbished and reinstalled.
So we attended the rededication of the Cardston temple in June of 1991, moved to San Diego in July of 1992 and attended the dedication of the San Diego Temple in April of 1993. We were blessed.
Another story that we were told about the San Diego temple is that the architects were a Catholic couple. A husband-and-wife team. I found that both sad and amazing at the same time. It is sad that they can’t go into the temple and admire the wonderful work that they did.
It seems like most modern temples have a theme. The Calgary Alberta temple has heads of wheat throughout the temple. We were able to tour the Payson Temple and it has a theme of peach trees from the local peach orchards. In fact, I just read that thirty-nine of the temples adopt a theme from the local culture. While I don’t know for sure, but I believe the San Diego Temple may have been the first to use such a theme throughout the temple. The eight-sided star is found all through the temple. While it wasn’t by intent, it turns out that the eight-sided star was the seal of Melchizedek. I think that is very cool.
I wondered for decades if these stories I had heard about the temple were all true but then several years ago while we were participating in an empty nesters Family Home Evening, one of our meetings was a presentation by William S Lewis, the architect of San Diego Temple. He gave a wonderful presentation about the temple and then afterwards during a Q&A I asked him about all these rumors. He confirmed that they were all true.
He told me that the eight-pointed star had no meaning when he chose to use it as a theme throughout the temple, he has since learned that it was a symbol of Melchizedek, and he loves that connection.
So, the temple will be closed for an undisclosed length of time. People are saying it could be as long as two years or more. I will miss our temple, but it will give us a good chance to visit the many nearby temples. Newport Beach, Redlands, Los Angeles and probably even Mesa and Gilbert. I also want to make a trip down to Tijuana to attend that temple.
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