Just eight days after the Yorba Linda California Temple was dedicated, doors have opened to publicly tour the San Diego California Temple prior to its August rededication.
An open house for San Diego’s house of the Lord — first dedicated in 1993 but recently renovated — runs from June 18 to July 11, excluding Sundays. While tours are free, reservations are highly recommended, accessible on SanDiegoCaliforniaTemple.org.
A media day is also on Monday, June 15, and invited guests will tour the sacred edifice June 16-17.
Three general leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are guiding news representatives through the temple on media day: Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; Elder Craig C. Christensen, a General Authority Seventy and president of the Church’s United States Southeast Area; and Elder I. Raymond Egbo, a General Authority Seventy and assistant executive director of the Temple Department.
“The temple is the most sacred place on earth to us as members of the Church,” said Elder Andersen, according to a June 15 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. “It is a place of holiness, of peace, of revelation, of receiving our answers to our prayers. It’s very, very important to us. It is a testament to us of the immortality of the soul.”
To accompany media day, the Church published interior and exterior photographs of the renovated temple on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
In two months, the San Diego temple will be rededicated Sunday, Aug. 23, at 10 a.m., with a rebroadcast at 2 p.m. A presiding authority has not been announced.
This house of the Lord, the Church’s 45th operating temple, was closed for extensive renovations in July 2023.
These included repainting the exterior; refreshing the landscaping; improving accessibility; upgrading the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system; improving the roof; and replacing art glass, carpet, lighting and furnishings. The cafeteria area was also removed, with that space repurposed as a waiting room for guests attending weddings.
Design and features
A four-story structure of 58,005 square feet, the San Diego temple is made of a combination of structural steel, precast concrete and marble chips set within marblecrete plaster. The sacred edifice features 10 spires, with two of those spires larger than the rest. Art-glass windows display gold, tan and textured glass.
Inside the building can be found an eight-pointed star-shaped atrium, formed by two overlapping 45-degree-offset squares. The design is also woven into the carpet, ceilings, art glass and lighting fixtures. Flooring consists of light-creme and medium-brown marble, with Crema Marfil marble used for countertops in dressing rooms and the extra-large sealing room.
Adorning the entry, waiting rooms and instruction rooms are satin brass fixtures with white alabaster acrylic. Sealing rooms use polished silver fixtures with Asfour crystal, and the celestial room displays four chandeliers and sconces that incorporate a satin gold finish and Asfour crystal. The bride’s room uses a pink and purple floral wall-to-wall area rug.
Baseboards, door casings, cabinetry and grand staircase railing use cherry veneer, and white-painted doors have vertical decorative panels composed of multiple interlocking squares. A round skylight, with a decorative metal grill featuring petal shapes, sits above the large sealing room. Other sealing rooms have unique ceiling art with interlocking squares, petal designs and gold leaf.
About the San Diego temple
San Diego’s house of the Lord was California’s third temple and the 45th operating temple of the Church once dedicated. After its rededication, it will serve around 50,000 Church members in San Diego County, the southern part of Riverside County and east to Yuma, Arizona.
On April 7, 1984, President Gordon B. Hinckley, then second counselor in the First Presidency, announced this temple at the start of April 1984 general conference. He said it had been announced to local leaders earlier that morning by the First Presidency, with President Spencer W. Kimball as Church President.
President Ezra Taft Benson, as President of the Church, later presided over the temple’s groundbreaking on Feb. 27, 1988. His second counselor, President Thomas S. Monson, dedicated the site.
The temple would be “a standing witness that the power of God can stay the powers of evil in our midst,” said President Benson in his remarks to the congregation.
After construction, an open house was held from Feb. 20 to April 3, 1993. Although 650,000 visitors were expected to tour the building during this time, the open house drew some 720,000.
The San Diego California Temple was dedicated in 23 sessions, from April 25 to April 30, 1993. President Hinckley, then first counselor in the First Presidency, presided over 13 sessions, while President Monson presided over the other 10.
In his dedicatory prayer, President Hinckley pleaded, “To the millions who will see it as they move swiftly over the adjacent highway, may it be a thing of singular beauty from which shall emanate a spiritual glow that speaks of peace and goodness.”
Three decades of performing temple ordinances passed by, until the San Diego temple closed July 31, 2023, for extensive renovations.
At the time of its closure, the temple reached 169 feet in height and 72,000 square feet in size, featuring twin central spires surrounded by four smaller ones. Highly visible beside Southern California’s Interstate 5, the temple sits on a 7.2-acre site in northern San Diego, near the suburb of La Jolla.
The Church in California
California is home to nine dedicated houses of the Lord, with one other under construction and two in planning stages.
Besides the under-renovation San Diego temple, eight others have been dedicated in the state: the Los Angeles (dedicated in 1956), Oakland (1964), Fresno (2000), Redlands (2003), Newport Beach (2005), Sacramento (2006), Feather River (2023) and Yorba Linda (June 2026) temples.
The Modesto California Temple has been under construction since October 2023. Temples are also planned for Bakersfield and the San Jose suburb of Sunnyvale, both announced in April 2023.
Latter-day Saints first arrived in California on July 31, 1846, in what was then Yerba Buena. The company of around 230 people tripled the population of Yerba Buena and helped build it into the prosperous city of San Francisco.
Today, nearly 730,000 Latter-day Saints live in California, meeting in around 600 meetinghouses and more than 1,000 wards and branches.
San Diego California Temple
Address: 7474 Charmant Drive, San Diego, California 92122-5000
Announced: April 7, 1984, by the First Presidency, with President Spencer W. Kimball as Church President
Groundbreaking: Feb. 27, 1988, presided over by President Ezra Taft Benson, Church President
Dedicated: April 25, 1993, by President Gordon B. Hinckley, first counselor in the First Presidency
Rededication open house: June 18 through July 11, 2026, excluding Sundays
To be rededicated: Aug. 23, 2026
Property size: 7.2 acres
Building size: 58,005 square feet
Building height: 169 feet to the top of the spire
