Why Washington D.C. Temple Site Was 'Meant to Be'

The designer of Radio City Music Hall and the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, a building praised by Frank Lloyd Wright as a once-in-a-century architectural achievement, received a curious invitation. In 1968, a member of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints approached Edward D. Stone about potentially designing the church’s soon-to-be-built Washington D.C. Temple. Other architects were eventually hired, but Stone flew from New York City to walk the wooded land on the Kensington, Maryland, hilltop site. He was impressed. "This is one of the finest sites for a religious building I have ever seen," he concluded.