In 1937, Saint Saviour’s was cut into sections and moved from the Venice and Western campus to the school’s new site on Coldwater Canyon. There, the chapel was seismically strengthened and reassembled. Determined to make religious education as much a focus of Harvard life as military training, Headmaster Robert Gooden threatened to resign if the school’s trustees did not approve construction of the chapel.
S A I N T S AV I O U R ’ S C H A P E L Dedicated in November 1914, Saint Saviour’s Chapel was originally erected on the Western Avenue campus of Harvard School. Modeled on the chapel at Britain’s Rugby School, it derived its name from Saint Saviour’s Cathedral in Southwark, England, where John Harvard, the founder of Harvard University, was baptized. In 1937, when the school moved to its Coldwater location, the chapel was taken apart, transported over Sepulveda Boulevard, and reassembled at its present site. The chapel’s twelve stained-glass windows—designed by Father John Gill, a legendary Harvard chaplain and history teacher—illustrate the school hymn, “For the Brave of Every Race,” and feature depictions of Father Gill, his dog, an astronaut, and an atomic submarine.
In the early 1960s, Father John Gill designed twelve new stained-glass windows, fabricated by Judson Studios in Pasadena.