Saint Teresa of Avila Church, Bodega
Encyclopedia
Saint Teresa of Avila Church is a Roman Catholic church in Bodega, California
. The white, wooden church with a steeple sits on a hilltop above the small, rural town of Bodega in Northern California. The church was built by shipbuilders in 1859 on land donated by Jasper O’Farrell and named after St. Teresa of Avila by local Spanish and Portuguese immigrants. Archbishop Alemany dedicated the church on June 2, 1861. The church is still in use today and is the oldest church in continuous use in Sonoma County
.
The original building was too small and was later expanded by cutting the church in half, pulling the two ends of the small church away from each other, and then building new walls and ceiling to fill in the newly created gap.
Also notable, the church interior has no center aisle, but rather two side aisles .
Ansel Adams
made the church the subject of a black and white photograph in 1953. The church is located directly next to the Bodega schoolhouse, which was the setting for the schoolhouse scene in Alfred Hitchcock
's film, The Birds
. The church was also seen in the film and Hitchcock attended services in the church.
Bodega, California
Bodega is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Sonoma County in the U.S. state of California. The town had a population of 220 as of the 2010 Census.Bodega is located on Bodega Highway, about west of Freestone, California...
. The white, wooden church with a steeple sits on a hilltop above the small, rural town of Bodega in Northern California. The church was built by shipbuilders in 1859 on land donated by Jasper O’Farrell and named after St. Teresa of Avila by local Spanish and Portuguese immigrants. Archbishop Alemany dedicated the church on June 2, 1861. The church is still in use today and is the oldest church in continuous use in Sonoma County
Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County, located on the northern coast of the U.S. state of California, is the largest and northernmost of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. Its population at the 2010 census was 483,878. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa....
.
The original building was too small and was later expanded by cutting the church in half, pulling the two ends of the small church away from each other, and then building new walls and ceiling to fill in the newly created gap.
Also notable, the church interior has no center aisle, but rather two side aisles .
Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
made the church the subject of a black and white photograph in 1953. The church is located directly next to the Bodega schoolhouse, which was the setting for the schoolhouse scene in Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's film, The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
. The church was also seen in the film and Hitchcock attended services in the church.