It’s not easy to escape in a place as vast and fast-moving as Houston. But I felt worlds away from the bustling, over-crowded city when I paid a visit to the Lanier Theological Library in Willowbrook on the Northwest side of town. It felt like I was in the pages of a fantasy novel, attending my first day at Hogwarts with wand in hand or stepping into the magical, just-beyond-the-wardrobe land of Narnia.
Hidden away in a gated, 35-acre estate, this grand,17,000-square-foot library offers over 105,000 volumes and resources, along with a digital library of 900,000 materials, highlighting world religions—primarily Christianity.
Mark Lanier, a renowned trial attorney and founder of The Lanier Law Firm, had the building constructed in 2010 after a visit to Oxford University, where he sketched a composite library design inspired by a collection of libraries he and his eldest son visited, including the famed Bodleian Libraries.
The English Gothic library was built to accompany the property’s Byzantine-style Stone Chapel—a reconstruction of a church in Turkey dating back to 500 A.D.—and in the years since has become an invaluable resource and refuge for students, scholars, and religious minds alike. Devout or not, you can escape into the quiet solitude of literature and personal study, and the design-oriented surroundings, like ceiling-high bookcases, opulent chandeliers, sprawling rugs, and painted ceilings, only heighten the sensory experience.
The non-circulating library (meaning books can’t be checked out) cost an estimated $10 million plus to build. It boasts an expansive catalog, but the space also features notable and museum-worthy artifacts and exhibits, such as the largest C.S. Lewis collection in the United States with first-edition books and handwritten letters; primitive oil lamps and their evolution over time; exact replicas of the Dead Sea Scrolls; and two King James Bibles from the 1600s.
Though Lanier is quite the bibliophile and a passionate follower and teacher of the Christian faith, this thoughtfully designed library, funded by the Lanier Theological Library Foundation, is more than just a personal passion project. In fact, Lanier hopes the destination will serve as an invaluable public resource for many years to come. “We built this with the engineering and the architecture in mind for 500 years, and our goal is to serve people of faith and people of academic interest for at least that,” he says.
Sharon Cofran helped Lanier curate his own personal library before coming to work as the facility’s head librarian. In the beginning, there were only 17,000 volumes to speak of, and now, Cofran works with a team of librarians to add up-to-date collections of books and materials from all over the world, covering everything from biblical languages to the latest theology. Scholars, academics, clergy, and students are among the limited number of visitors that the space can allow a day.
Although many libraries are moving steadfast in a digital direction, Cofran says the Lanier Theological Library is a place you’ll find physical materials aplenty, whether that’s an artifact collection on display or a recently released book like John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way.
“We like to hear that library spine crack,” she says while showing me around the space. “We have things that are over 2,000 years old and things that are current, so there’s a real age span of the materials here.” When I toured the space, I spotted an illustrated map of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, which would inspire childlike wonder in anyone.
In addition to academic materials, visitors also have access to free lectures hosted throughout the year on various topics. In years prior, luminary figures like former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Old Testament scholar Emanuel Tov have made appearances, and last month, N.T. Wright, a famous New Testament scholar, gave a lecture to hundreds of attendees—a talk that sold out within 24 hours of being posted online. An upcoming lecture in September, given by author and theologian Amy Orr-Ewing, plans to highlight “C.S. Lewis and the Problem of Pain.”
David B. Capes, director of programming, has his hands full planning these lectures throughout the year. He’s also in charge of the free, open-to-the-public courses offered by the library that are taught in adjacent spaces like the newly opened Lanier Learning Center, which recently won an architectural award for its stairwell and ribbed vaulted ceiling. Even after working in this educational space for years, the academic still isn’t quite used to the library’s profound beauty.
“There’s a place in the library—on the second floor looking down upon the main hall of the library—and with the sun streaming in and the artwork on the walls and the books on display it looks like a magical place,” he says. “You can have a very utilitarian [library] experience somewhere else, with metal shelves on the wall and plastic tables and chairs, but when you’re surrounded by this beauty, as well as the quiet and the solitude and all of this learning through the centuries, it invokes something special.”
