St. Clara Church on Woodlawn Avenue in Chicago became the first home of the National Shrine of St. Thérèse in the 1920s. In the 1950s, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops declared the site a National Shrine. In 1975, a fire destroyed St. Clara and the Carmelites were faced with the financial challenge of reconstruction of the Shrine. A large bequest from a devoted Lay Carmelite made it possible for the Carmelites to build a new Shrine facility on the Aylesford Carmelite campus in Darien, Illinois.