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If Lake View Cemetery sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve been there before- remember Garfield’s towering memorial from a few issues back?
Well, tucked just a short walk away sits another Cleveland masterpiece hiding in plain sight: Wade Chapel. You’ve probably passed its bronze doors without realizing that inside is one of the most breathtaking Tiffany interiors in the world- right here in our own backyard.
Step through Wade Chapel’s four-ton bronze doors and the whole room seems to glow from within - like you’ve walked into the inside of a seashell.
It’s one of the rare interiors Louis Comfort Tiffany’s studios designed top-to-bottom (mosaics, lamps, pew details, the works), and it’s sitting quietly in Lake View Cemetery like, “oh hey, no big deal.”
Here’s the plot twist: the show-stopping stained-glass at the altar - The Flight of Souls- wasn’t made for Cleveland at first. Tiffany sent it to the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, where it won a gold medal. Only after it wowed Europe did it come home to Cleveland and get installed here.
That’s right: our little chapel on Euclid Avenue is literally housing an international award-winner. 💁♀️
What to notice (aka how to look like an art-history genius for 10 minutes)
A woman designed the window.
Tiffany Studios legend Agnes Northrop drew The Flight of Souls - a big deal in a field where women were often the (uncredited) hands and eyes behind the glass. However, Tiffany wholly approved of the space saying ‘I am perfectly satisfied’ when he finally saw it in person.
In her composition, poppies = sleep, lilies = resurrection, doves ascend in a cross toward Christ, and a rainbow seals the promise. Once you see the doves, you can’t unsee them. {read more here}
The walls are a story in motion.
Both side walls are 32-foot-long glass mosaics by Frederick Wilson, Tiffany’s go-to for church iconography.
Together they form a kind of Voyage of Life: Old Testament prophecy and law on one side; New Testament fulfillment and light on the other. The processions feel almost Egyptian funerary in rhythm - oars, shields, figures, all moving you forward. {read more here}
Materials that shimmer, not shout.
Look down: the floor’s a mosaic sea pattern that echoes the wall “breaker” motif. Look up: the ceiling repeats a rosette theme you first meet on those massive doors. Look closer: the pew ends are inlaid with Favrile glass and mother-of-pearl, and the altar lamps are carved from single blocks of alabaster. It’s all restraint and radiance. {read more here}
You’ve got to see this slide show of the chapel - especially the stunning close up of the mosaic:
The Cleveland back-story (because we love a power-family arc)
The chapel is a love letter from Jeptha H. Wade II to his grandfather, Jeptha Wade - telegraph tycoon, Western Union co-founder, and first president of Lake View Cemetery.
The exterior is by Hubbell & Benes, the young Cleveland firm that would later design the Cleveland Museum of Art. Wade Chapel (1901) was among their early headline projects and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Then Tiffany’s studio took the interior and made it sing.
If You Go
Where: Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, OH
When: Open daily (10 a.m.–4 p.m., seasonal - check ahead)
What to bring: Comfortable shoes, a quiet mind, a camera (no tripods inside)
Pro tip: Start at the chapel’s center pew, glance left and right to absorb the glass mosaics, then step toward the altar window and watch how the light shifts across the lilies and doves as clouds drift by.
Bonus: Pair the visit with the nearby Garfield Monument and a relaxed lunch in University Circle.
💡 Sidebar: Clara Driscoll – Ohio’s Own Tiffany Girl
Before The Flight of Souls ever glowed in Cleveland, another Tiffany legend was cutting glass a few hours south. Clara Driscoll, born Clara Pierce Wolcott in Tallmadge, Ohio, led the Women’s Glass-Cutting Department at Tiffany Studios in New York.
She and her all-female crew - nicknamed the Tiffany Girls - selected, cut, and arranged the shimmering pieces for some of Tiffany’s most famous lamps, including the Dragonfly and Wisteria.
For decades her name was lost behind the brand, but letters discovered in 2006 revealed that she had designed more than 30 of Tiffany’s most celebrated works. So when you stand inside Wade Chapel and look up at that light-soaked glass, remember: one of the brightest talents in Tiffany’s studio came straight from here in Ohio. {read more here}
Watch it come alive:
Want to see even more? I posted a video a couple weeks ago about Lake View Cemetery that includes footage of Wade Chapel. You can watch it here:
Why this place hits different
Cleveland has plenty of grand façades. Wade Chapel flips it: demure on the outside, a light-drenched narrative inside. And the fact that the altar window - drawn by a woman designer - took home a Paris gold medal before it ever met a Lake Erie sky?
That’s the kind of quiet flex I live for. It’s not just pretty glass; it’s a room built for solace, story, and the feeling that maybe - just maybe - everything bends toward the light.
P.S. 🚜 If you haven’t wandered Szalay’s corn maze yet, go this week! It’s my happy place every fall — crisp air, hot cider, and that perfect small-town-Ohio feeling. Hours + info →
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