By Raymond P. Schmidt

The last vestige of a link between the Naval Cryptologic organization and its home at 3801 Nebraska Avenue for over half a century has been dissolved. On Friday afternoon, the 22nd of October 2004, the Navy Chapel was closed in a dignified military-religious-secular service. The “church without a spire” ended its role as the religious focus for the North West Washington, DC campus one month short of its 80th anniversary, as attested by its cornerstone dated “November 1924.”

Originally constructed as part of Mount Vernon Seminary, as the adjacent school for young women was called, the Somers Memorial Chapel became Navy property in December 1942 along with eight other buildings on 35 acres. Built with funds largely from contributions of Seminary alumnae, the chapel then narrowly escaped being converted into a two-story structure for Navy offices. Once recognized as one of a few splendid examples of Georgian Colonial architecture in the Washington area, the chapel had strong defenders among school graduates.

One of them wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt and soon also gained support of the Washington chapter of the American Institute of Architecture and local newspapers. The Navy wisely relented and promised to retain the original architecture of all buildings, specifically the chapel.

By December 1942, one year after Pearl Harbor, the school began vacating the buildings and eventually moved to new facilities on Foxhall Road, several miles south and west. School administrators made one telling decision, however, not to include the church spire in the transfer of ownership. It had not yet been installed on the Somers Chapel in 1942, and its absence gives the building its unique appearance to this day. The Navy then renamed the Somers Chapel The Navy Chapel. It served naval personnel for over six decades in many ways similar to the way it served Seminary students and their families: church services, weddings, baptisms, and funerals, plus memorial and retirement ceremonies. After the NAVSECGRU itself moved to Fort George G. Meade in 1995, the Chapel continued its long-standing role until the fall 2004 closing ceremony ended its memorable 62 years of service to the Navy.

Near the end of the “Service of Closing,” a chaplain declared the building “de-sanctified” as a Chapel. Then the Deputy Commandant of the Naval District Washington (of which the “Nebraska Avenue Complex” has been a Field Support Activity for most of a decade) transferred the Mount Vernon Seminary flag to an Associate Vice-President of The George Washington University. GW purchased the renamed Mount Vernon College several years ago, and now operates the school campus on Foxhall Road.

Perhaps the final irony is that the Department of Homeland Security, which now owns the site, plans to convert the building to an appropriate business use, probably as a conference center

Source: CRYPTOLOG, Winter 2005