Private Chapels

Tabby Chapel by John Deering
Alligator Creek, Florida

The owner of this secluded chapel in Alligator Creek, Florida, turned to Savannah architect John Deering, known for his skill with historical forms, because he wanted a building that used authentic materials. In this case, the material was tabby -- a tactile mix of lime, oyster shell, sand, and water that was used prolifically in Colonial times along the southeast Atlantic Coast. Today, says Deering "it's not easy to get the mix correct."

The chapel design borrows "bits and pieces" of architecture from the 18th and 19th centuries. The front doorway and the quatrefoil windows in the gables are copied (as was much of Kluge Chapel) from books published by Batty Langley. The side windows imitate ones from Savannah's Unitarian Chapel, built in 1851. The moldings and castellated details are of a cast brownstone, and the flooring is made of limestone from the Negev Desert.

Deering's experience as a preservationist served him well here; instead of restoring an older building, he was reconstructing historical architecture from scratch. The chapel is Gothic Revival, with details Deering drew from field research. "I went to two different cemeteries in Savannah to study the details on mausoleums," he recalls. He fitted the chapel with Bavarian glass and a 19th-century pipe organ rescued from a church. The organ was made in Utica, New York, circa 1875, and there's a French cross from the same era. A visitor to the chapel likened the experience to coming upon a remnant of some lost plantation, where all was gone but this tiny little structure.

RESOURCES: David Easton, 212/334-3820, www.davideastoninc.com; McAlpine Tankersley Architecture, 334/262-8315, www.mcalpinetankersley.com; Ruard Veltman Architecture, 704/540-5620, www.ruardveltmanarchitecture.com; John Deering, Poticny Deering Felder, 912/447-0440, www.pdfpc.net.