BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Chino Hills
Chino Hills, California (San Bernardino County), USA
Also known as: Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Chino Hills
- Deities
- Swaminarayan, Radha Krishna, Sita-Ram, Shiva-Parvati
- Traditions
- vaishnava
- Worship status
- active
- Address
- 15100 Fairfield Ranch Rd, Chino Hills, CA 91709.
- Coordinates
- 33.9772, -117.6962
- Darshan hours
- Varies by season; consult BAPS's own website for the current daily schedule before visiting.
- Best time to visit
- Year-round; the temple's December anniversary of its 2012 opening draws especially large crowds.
- How to reach
- At 15100 Fairfield Ranch Road in Chino Hills, San Bernardino County, California; reachable by car, roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, with Ontario International Airport the nearest major airport.
- Festivals
- Diwali/Annakut (October/November)
Location
Open in Google MapsChino Hills’ BAPS mandir traces back to a 1977 visit by Pramukh Swami Maharaj, whose encouragement grew into a small center inaugurated in Whittier in 1984. By 1996 the growing Southern California BAPS community proposed a larger, traditional stone mandir, and first approached the City of Chino Hills about a Peyton Drive site in 1998 — beginning a 14-year approval saga marked by local opposition, including a September 2004 city council meeting that drew 1,200-1,500 attendees over seven and a half hours and ended in a 4-1 vote denying a zoning code change. A groundbreaking ceremony followed in September 2005, and the city council unanimously approved spire heights of up to 78 feet in August 2011; the finished mandir opened to the public in December 2012.
Built from roughly 35,000 hand-carved pieces of Italian Carrara marble and Indian pink sandstone, assembled in traditional Shilpa Shastra style without structural steel, the 164,000-square-foot complex sits on a 20-acre campus with a 91-foot lotus-shaped pond. It is notable for incorporating 40 base-isolator units for seismic protection, described by sources as the first earthquake-proof stone mandir built anywhere in the world — engineering meant, along with the temple’s traditional construction methods, to help the structure last many generations. The central shrine enshrines Bhagwan Swaminarayan alongside Radha-Krishna, Sita-Ram, and Shiva-Parvati, and the mandir now serves as a major hub for the Hindu community across the Los Angeles/Inland Empire region.
Sources
- historical record: Wave 2 re-verification: address and coordinates confirmed via two independent geocoders (Komoot Photon and OpenStreetMap/Nominatim), both returning 'BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir' at 15100 Fairfield Ranch Road, Chino Hills, CA 91709 (33.9772249, -117.6961614). This corrects the entry's prior how_to_reach text, which had described the temple as being 'On Peyton Drive near CA-71' -- an unconfirmed street reference not corroborated by either geocoder.
- historical record: Cross-checked against Wikipedia's 'BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Chino Hills' article: Pramukh Swami Maharaj's 1977 California visit encouraged early gatherings; a small BAPS center was inaugurated in Whittier in 1984; the local community proposed a larger stone mandir in 1996 and first approached the City of Chino Hills in 1998, beginning a 14-year approval process that included a contentious September 2004 city council meeting (a 1,200-1,500-person crowd, a 7.5-hour session, and a 4-1 vote denying a code change) before a groundbreaking ceremony in September 2005 and final unanimous city approval of spire heights up to 78 feet in August 2011; the temple was completed and opened to the public in December 2012. The article also documents its construction from roughly 35,000 hand-carved pieces of Italian Carrara marble and Indian pink sandstone assembled without structural steel, its 40 base-isolator seismic units making it (per the article) the first earthquake-proof stone mandir in the world, its 164,000-square-foot, 20-acre campus with a 91-foot lotus-shaped pond, and construction by 900+ volunteers contributing 1.3 million hours.
For review
- The Wikipedia article's own timeline shows the September 2005 groundbreaking occurring before the City of Chino Hills granted final unanimous approval of the mandir's spire heights in August 2011; the article does not explain this apparent sequencing (e.g., whether an earlier phase or foundation work was permitted ahead of the final height approval), so this entry reports both dates as given without resolving the discrepancy.