#ThursdayDoors | Visiting A Northeast Ohio Store, Finding A Unique Chapel

/ Ally Bean

Sign in front of retail store.

Today I’m joining Thursday Doors, hosted by Norm Frampton, so that I can share with you photos of the following doors + a bit more.

I took these photos when we decided, on a whim, to stop at P. Graham Dunn, a factory + retail store + chapel in Dalton, OH.

P. Graham Dunn makes inspirational home and wall decor, often in the form of wooden signs.  Above the factory there’s a humongous retail store in which you can lost looking at all the merchandise. 

Interesting barn adjacent to retail store.

Outside the store is a beautiful pond with a path around it that leads to a small narrow chapel, named Anna’s Chapel.  

The chapel is by the side of the pond and is like none other that I’ve seen.  Inside the chapel the raw wooden walls are almost entirely covered with graffiti that praises Christianity + a few personal messages as well. 

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DOOR into Anna’s Chapel.

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Graffiti on inside chapel walls.

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Example of P. Graham Dunn’s merchandise as seen inside chapel.

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More graffiti on inside chapel walls.

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DOOR as seen while standing inside Anna’s Chapel.

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One last look at graffiti on inside chapel walls.

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View of pond as seen from within Anna’s Chapel.

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73 thoughts on “#ThursdayDoors | Visiting A Northeast Ohio Store, Finding A Unique Chapel”

        • I didn’t know you first name, so thank you. In addition to the chapel, inside the factory + store are clean rest rooms, snacks for sale, and comfy chairs in the lobby. It is closed on Sunday.

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              • No the Ohio was part of my sales territory, mostly in the Cleveland area. But I also travel to a town south of Cleveland, off 71 and west. I remember going by the famous prison where they film the movie, the Shawshank Redemption. I think that was the name of it. But I would travel from Rochester New York heading west and one of my engineers would leave Rochester Indiana and come east and we will meet in the middle which was Cleveland area. Enjoyed dinners at the Great Lakes brewery restaurant. I liked northern Ohio a lot except the traffic was getting worse and worse but, all the highways around in the city. Just remember the name of the town, Mansfield.Wow, I haven’t lost the memory completely yet. Have a great day It was nice chatting.

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    • Deb, I’d never seen Christian graffiti before, so this was charming in its own way. There were markers available in the chapel, so the graffiti was being encouraged. Most trippy.

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    • janet, I don’t know how long this chapel has been around, but I do know the factory has been there forever [it would seem to me]. The chapel was lovely and wacky at the same time. Kind of like Ohio.

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  6. Just left a comment on Norm’s site, now back here with some observations: The chapel is enchanting but I was put off by the graffiti until I realized the space was really resonating with these visitors.

    Doors fascinate me, both the quirky and the ornate, remembering now the awesome sight of Ghiberti’s doors (Gates of Paradise) in Florence.

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    • marian, the graffiti is intentional. TPTB of the chapel put markers out so that people will write something & people have obliged. It’s odd to be in this space, being a wordy girl with all that writing around me I couldn’t focus anywhere but out the window toward the pond. Still it was pleasant little chapel.

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    • Z-D, I agree with you. I liked the store and the people who worked in it were friendly, but if we were ever to go back it’d be to visit the chapel first, then the store maybe.

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    • nance, I liked this little chapel but had to tell the read the words part of my brain to cool it. My eyes were flitting everywhere at first, but eventually I was able to think of the graffiti as pattern on the wall.

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    • Jan, the barn with the animals painted on it was near the driveway to the parking lot. We couldn’t tell if it was part of the P. Graham Dunn property or if someone next door owned the barn and had painted it for fun. Either way, it was cool.

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    • Betsy, thank you. I enjoyed looking out that window and for once managed to snap a pic that was just like what I was seeing. Yes, the markers were already in the chapel waiting for anyone who wandered inside. We had no idea what we were walking into.

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  17. The view being in the chapel and looking over the lake, is insanely beautiful! This kind of graffiti I wish to see more in churches – why not, it’s a sign of the time we live in:) The barn at the beginning is extremely beautiful. Can you give us some looks inside, another time – am curious!

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    • Junieper, the atmosphere in this chapel was mellow to the nth degree. At first I kept reading all the words in the graffiti, which was everywhere in the chapel, but eventually got the hang of staring out the window into the beautiful trees across the way.

      I don’t know much about the barn. It was on a property adjacent to the parking lot. I snapped a photo because it was pretty. I don’t know anything more about it, so no inside pics, I’m afraid.

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    • L. Marie, thank you and thank you. I’m glad you liked the pics of the chapel and I hope I like the results of tomorrow’s adventure in good health. 👀

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  23. That is beautiful and sweet and really raises the level of one’s happiness 🙂 I love it. View from pond though, Ohhh Myyy! That’s really a sight, great shot!

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    • joey, this was the nicest little chapel I ever did see. Unexpected, both in its location [by a retail store?] and its interior theme [Christian graffiti?]. I liked the pond with trees around it, too. All of it called to be on Thursday Doors.

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      • Hmmmmmmm, I dunno. I wouldn’t put it past some of the seedier public restrooms around here to have windows. I do know if there were a chapel like that where I live that allowed for people to write inspirational graffiti on the walls, about every third message would result in a lightning strike…

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        • I wondered about that, too. We couldn’t find any un-Christian messages on the walls, so either TPTB clean up the walls on a regular basis or vulgarity doesn’t happen around P. Graham Dunn. This place was in Amish Country, so… different.

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    • Kate, it was the smallest chapel I’ve ever been in. The view of the pond was stunning, but the graffiti on the inside walls took some getting used to. It was memorable– and photographed quite well.

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    • Judy, the Christian graffiti was new for us, too. It took my eyes + brain some time to get used to all the scribbles, but once I did I liked the graffiti. I wish I knew more about that barn. It wasn’t part of P. Graham Dunn.

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