Les Avenieres Chapel

Completed in 1917, this jewel of hermeticism required three years of work and over a million tesserae made in Murano. It's a treasure trove of symbolism, blending the arcana of the Tarot with the wheel of the Zodiac.
Mary Wallace Shillito was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, in 1876. Her father, a powerful businessman, made his fortune in railroads, copper mines and Chicago department stores. From an early age, Mary had a deep admiration for her younger sister Violet. As teenagers, the two sisters delightfully immersed themselves in a Paris in the grip of Orientalism. Violet died of typhoid fever in Cannes in 1901, aged 24. Mary, inconsolable, travels the world. One fine afternoon in the summer of 1904, Mary and a few friends, including her best friend Marcelle Senard (1879-1971), visited modest oat-growing clearings on the slopes of the Salève. With no passable road, it took them an hour to walk up from Cruseilles. They were overwhelmed by the exceptional beauty of the panorama. Instantly, Marie decided to build here the shrine she dreamed of dedicating to her sister Violet, who had died too soon... Her parents had just died, and she was now alone, at the head of an immense fortune. She buys the land, sold by farmers in Cruseilles.