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St. Teresa of Avila Church
In 1953 Ansel Adams stopped on the road below Bodega and made “Church and Road,” a black and white photograph of a white redwood church on a green rise. That church, St. Teresa of Avila, has stood since 1859 and still says Mass today.
“Church and Road,” 1953
Ansel Adams photographed St. Teresa of Avila in 1953, framing the church and the road that climbs the hill below it. The print is known as “Church and Road, Bodega, California.” It is the reason many people know the building before they ever set foot in Sonoma County, and it remains the most exacting portrait of a plain, well-proportioned country church.
The view Adams found is still there. The white steeple, the fence line, the open rise, the road: little has changed in the decades since.
Built of redwood in 1859
New England ship's carpenters raised the church in 1859 from redwood, on land donated by Jasper O'Farrell, the surveyor who laid out much of early San Francisco. Archbishop Alemany dedicated it on June 2, 1861. The frame carpentry shows in the steep gable and the tall, narrow proportions, the Carpenter Gothic vernacular of the coast.
In 1872 the congregation enlarged the church in an unusual way. Rather than build an addition, they cut the building in half, pulled the two ends apart, and framed a new center section between them, adding a new ceiling, walls, and stained glass to close the gap.
The oldest Catholic church in continuous use in Sonoma County
St. Teresa of Avila is California Historical Landmark No. 820 and the oldest Catholic church in continuous use in Sonoma County. It has never stopped functioning as a parish church. Where many buildings of its age survive as museums, this one has simply kept doing its job for more than a century and a half.
The churchyard cemetery on the same ground holds graves reaching back to the 1860s, and the parish maintains it as an active Catholic burial ground.
Still an active parish
Since 1963 St. Teresa has been part of the Parish of St. Philip the Apostle in Occidental, within the Diocese of Santa Rosa. It still celebrates weekend Mass, a Saturday evening vigil and a Sunday morning service. Times can change with the parish calendar, so confirm current Mass times with St. Philip the Apostle before you plan a visit around a service.
The church also appears in Alfred Hitchcock's “The Birds” (1963): its exterior is visible in the film, and the Potter Schoolhouse, the building behind the schoolyard attack scene, stands next door on the same rise.
Visiting St. Teresa of Avila
- It is a working church. Visitors are welcome to see the exterior and the grounds. If you come during a Mass, a wedding, or a funeral, please be quiet and unobtrusive.
- Where it is.On its rise above the village of Bodega, next door to the Potter Schoolhouse, a short walk from the Casino Bar & Grill and the Bodega Country Store.
- Bodega, not Bodega Bay. The church is in inland Bodega, about five miles east of the coastal town of Bodega Bay. Set your map to Bodega, CA 94922.
- Photography. The Ansel Adams vantage is from the road below the church. Early light and fog both suit the white clapboard well.