Rollins College ranks among the country’s most beautiful campuses for reasons that are obvious to anyone who has ever visited there. Clearly, a major contributing factor is picture-postcard Knowles Memorial Chapel, designed by famed ecclesiastical architect Ralph Adams Cram and built in 1932.
By 2028, it will be even more beautiful—and more functional—than ever after a major makeover that will require its closure for as long as 18 months beginning next May. There’ll be roof and masonry restoration as well as stained-glass window conservation. Mechanical, electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning upgrades will also be undertaken.
The Mediterranean Revival-style building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is synonymous with Rollins. It’s home to worship services as well as guest speakers and musical performances—most notably those by the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park. And for decades it has been among the region’s most popular wedding venues.
“Knowles Memorial Chapel has been one of the most significant and iconic landmarks on our campus for nearly a century,” says Brooke Barnett, the college’s president. “Preserving and restoring it is among our highest priorities, so future generations can enjoy it for the next hundred years.”
Yet the chapel wasn’t always so universally beloved. When ground was broken in 1931, a college that was usually described in press reports as being “swanky” or “ritzy” was hurting financially. Faculty salaries had been cut by 30 percent and enrollment had plummeted due to an abrupt spike in tuition and the worsening impact of the Great Depression.
The chapel, however, was paid for with a $200,000 donation from Frances Knowles Warren and her sister, Mabel Knowles Gage, in memory of their father, Francis Bangs Knowles, an industrialist and winter resident who was an important donor during the formation of the college and remained on its board of trustees until his death in 1890.
Still, despite the fact that the sisters picked up the tab for the chapel (and another donor, Mary Louise Bok, paid for the adjacent Annie Russell Theatre), some grumbled that it appeared, at the very least, unseemly to erect superfluous buildings under such grim circumstances. And a chapel, no less, at a college that had declared itself to be nondenominational after cutting ties decades earlier with the National Association of Congregational Churches.
Refusing to be deterred, the forward-looking Holt would ultimately remake the campus with 32 new architecturally cohesive buildings during his legendary 24-year tenure. Some of those buildings—like the chapel, which he considered to be his crown jewel—would attract national notice.
On March 23, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was on campus for convocation to receive an honorary L.H.D. (Doctor of Humane Letters) in ceremonies at the vaulted venue. (Eleanor Roosevelt, who accompanied him, received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan medallion, prompting her husband to remark that it was the first time he had seen his “better half” in a cap and gown.)
FDR was Holt’s friend and political kindred spirit. But “that man in the White House,” as his detractors referred to him, wasn’t popular in Winter Park. In the election of 1932, he had beaten Herbert Hoover 4,877 to 3,522 votes in Orange County. In conservative Winter Park, however, the tally was 250 to 450 in favor of Hoover.
Among those locals who did not turn out to see the president was Frances Knowles Warren. In a 2005 oral history from John “Jack” Rich—a student host at the time who later became his alma mater’s dean of admissions—recalled the reaction of the chapel benefactor’s reaction to the impending visit from the First Couple:
“She said, ‘Hamilton, if you’re about to tell me that the Roosevelts have accepted an invitation to come here, and that you want to have the convocation in the chapel, don’t forget I gave that chapel to the college not with any strings attached. It’s for you to use as you see fit. So, if that’s the purpose of all this, you’re wasting your time.’ And then she said, ‘I just have one request. Don’t ask me to be in town when those people are here, because I will not be here when they’re in town.’”
Well, thanks for the chapel anyway, Mrs. Warren, and for supporting Holt’s invitation to that man (and that woman) in the White House despite your personal misgivings about the New Deal. I’ll bet you were glad to see that the rowdies hadn’t wrecked the place when you got your own L.H.D. there two years later. And I’ll bet you’ll be there in spirit when it reopens, good as new, in 2028.