Swedenborgian Church, Arts and Crafts style church in Pacific Heights, San Francisco, United States.
The Swedenborgian Church is a place of worship in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, built from brick, heavy timber, and handcrafted oak doors with iron hardware. The complex includes a main sanctuary, a covered walkway, and a garden courtyard that together form a connected set of spaces.
The church was built in 1895 under Reverend Joseph Worcester, who brought together architects A.C. Schweinfurth, A. Page Brown, and Bernard Maybeck to work on the project. It became one of the first buildings in California to apply Arts and Crafts ideals consistently across both architecture and craft.
The garden courtyard inside the compound was designed as part of worship, not just as a backdrop, with plants and trees chosen to evoke a sense of the natural world as sacred space. Visitors who walk through it often notice how the boundary between inside and outside feels intentionally blurred.
The church is open to visitors on Sundays and sometimes offers guided tours with staff who explain the architecture and history. It is worth checking ahead if you want to visit outside of regular services, as access may vary.
Several of the paintings inside the church were made by William Keith, an artist who was a close friend of Reverend Worcester and connected to the early California landscape painting movement. These works were conceived as part of the building from the start, not added later as decoration.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
