About Chapel of Rest

The Chapel of Rest's annual concert series marks its 25th anniversary with a performance by Asheville's Keowee Trio on Sunday, April 25. Admission is $8 for the concert, which begins at 4 p.m. and features flautist Kate Steinbeck, cellist Simon Ertz and harpist Jacqueline Bartlett. A fall concert in October will feature Durham's Ciompi Quartet.

Now on the National Register of Historic Places, the Chapel of Rest was built in 1887 as an Episcopal church with gothic architecture. An adjoining cemetery has graves dating back to 1856, including the final resting place of General Collett Leventhorpe, an officer for the South during the Civil War. The Chapel of Rest burned to the ground in 1916 and was reconstructed and reopened in 1918 under the direction of Reverend Hugh Dobbins, headmaster of the nearby Patterson School (which opened in 1909) and the chapel's minister for 23 years. His great-granddaughter, Liza Plaster, is a board member for the Chapel of Rest Preservation Society and also owns Ripshin Goat Dairy in Blowing Rock.

"I've gone to the chapel since I was a child," Plaster says. "My grandmother used to go and sweep up the chapel and practice the organ before services. So I would go with her and loll around on the pews while she played Episcopal hymns, and then go home with her."

The chapel continued to serve the Patterson School, a nonprofit, nondenominational boarding and day school providing college-preparatory education for ninth through 12th grades. Although some of its original pews, altar and other furnishings survived the fire, the chapel eventually fell into disrepair and was deconsecrated by the Episcopalian Diocese in the 1970s. The Chapel of Rest Preservation Society was created in 1984 and acquired the lease to the building, which was fully restored in 2002. The society purchased the chapel, the cemetery and the four-acre hill on which it all sits from the Patterson School Foundation in 2009. The school closed that same year after a century of operation.

Today the chapel is open as a place for the public to meditate and pray during daylight hours, although it does not host regular religious services. In addition to spring and fall classical music concerts, it features holiday services and music every Easter eve, Thanksgiving eve and Christmas Eve and is also rented for weddings, business meetings and other events throughout the year.

"It's in a beautiful location on a hilltop with a perfect view of the bend of the Yadkin River and the most peaceful valley," Plaster says. "A lot of people like to go there and just sit for a while, myself included when time permits. I love to be there for our concerts because you can sit in those wooden pews, look out those beautiful old wavy glass windows and enjoy the scenery and the music at the same time. It's just about perfect to be able to do that."