A. A church run by the Fellowship of the Sun, an extremist group of anti-vampire Christians.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. Outside of Dallas, Texas.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. The church is seen in several episodes of Season 2: Episode 6, "Hard-Hearted Hannah", Episode 7, "Release Me" and Episode 8, "Timebomb".

It appears to be part of the Light of Day Institute camp.

We see side of the church when Jason is called by the Reverend Steve Newlin to do some carpentry work (on a platform he is building to sacrifice a vampire).

Later, we see the interior, when Newlin and his wife take Sookie on a tour of the church. She is planning to infiltrate the church to find out the location of the missing Godric, but Steve Newlin has found out in advance, and locks her in the basement.

Sarah Newlin, the reverend's wife, seduces Jason, and they have sex in the church.

And finally, the church is the scene of the final showdown between the Fellowship and the vampires. Newlin manages to capture Eric and ties him to an altar (with silver chains), when he is rescued by a paint gun-wielding Jason.

The dangerous Dallas vampires then invade the church, but they are prevented from slaughtering the Fellowship members when Godric intervenes.

Q. What is it actually, in real life?

A. A church - but far from Dallas.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. This is actually the SkyRose Chapel at Rose Hills Memorial Park, a cemetery at 3888 Workman Mill Road, in Whittier, CA.

Whittier (the home town of Richard Nixon) is about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

You'll find the park just east of the 605 Freeway. Take the Rose Hills Road exit, then follow Workman Mill Road to the park's main entrance.  But the chapel is located atop a hill on the other side of the large park, so you'll have to follow the main road southeast just over a mile until you come to the church.

(In reality, it is miles away from the location for the Light of Day camp.)





   (The park has its own website at www.rosehills.com )


Update: I just found out that there is a virtually identical chapel in the Dallas area!  And it was designed by the same architect who designed the Skyrose Chapel.  It's called the Marty Leonard Chapel, and is located in Fort Worth. There are a few minor differences (enough to verify that they did indeed film at the SkyRose), but the similarity is amazing. You can see photos of the Dallas Chapel here.

I'm not sure if it's just a coincidence (that the Fellowship chapel was supposed to be in Dallas), or if the producers were aware of the duplicate in L.A. and chose it because it resembled the Dallas chapel.

A fan, Aimee, brought the Dallas chapel to my attention - it turns out that she was married there.  (Thanks, Aimee!)


[ I also found out that the same L.A. chapel was used in the new Star Trek movie, in a scene where young Spock addresses the Vulcan Council. ]

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A. As anyone familiar with my larger, Seeing-Stars.com website knows, I have a large section devoted to the final resting places of the stars. Doing the research for that chapter required me to visit all of major cemeteries in the L.A. area, including Rose Hills. So I recognized the church when I saw it in the episode.

There aren't many big stars buried at Rose Hills, but it certainly is a beautiful park. And the name is very appropriate.  Not only is it situated in the hills, but the park does have some spectacular rose gardens (in season) - if flowers are your thing. You'll find the rose garden at the main entrance on Workman Mill Road.


I'm told that the park wasn't originally named "Rose Hills".  It started out as Whittier Heights Cemetery.  In the 1950's, they held a contest to rename it, and the young lady who won the contest was inspired by the fact that hills frequently had a "rosy glow" in the morning. (Thanks, Bob.)

Likewise, it turns out that there are at least five graves at Rose Hills with the family name of Trueblood.  Seriously.
(That sounded too good to be true, at first, so I double-checked.  It's true.)





Here is an aerial photo of the church. And here is a map link.