The Onion
The former sanctuary of the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society in North Hills, widely known as “The Onion,” is one of the most distinctive ecclesiastical buildings in all of Southern California. The congregation, needing a larger space, bought a five-acre ranch property in the North Hills area in 1960s. Frank Ehrenthal, a former student of Richard Neutra and a Universalist himself, came up with a Modern design – a round building where people could face each other on equal footing. Completed in 1964, the dome-shaped building was built of glue-laminated timber beams that curve all the way from the foundation to the flat point at the top of the roof. A decline in membership led to the sale of the property to El Camino Metro church in 2021 and it is now the home of Vida Church. It was designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2009.
North Hills, Los Angeles County
Photographer: Andrew Schmidt