It is not recorded exactly when the mission church in Lee Vining actually began. It was probably in the late 40's and early 50's. The present church was originally a dispensary building over at the West Portal location at the foot of the volcanoes south of Lee Vining. At the time, the Department of Water and Power of Los Angeles was building a tunnel through the volcanoes to transport water from Grant Lake and various streams in the Lee Vining area to Los Angeles. Once the tunnel was completed, the temporary town was dismantled and the dispensary building was cut in half, transported to the present site of the Lee Vining Church, reassembled, and then refurbished inside to serve as a church. The sacristy was used for living quarters for a couple of years before the present rectory was built in the early 50's. An artist friend of Fr. Kelley painted the picture of Our Savior of the Mountains, a picture of Christ superimposed on the scene of Tioga Pass and with artistic license, Mono Lake in the distance. This picture now hangs on the wall behind the altar.

Also in the early 50's, Fr. Kelley, with the help of friends, built the present-day rectory alongside the Church. The house is at least twice the size of the church and in reality is larger inside than it appears from the outside. There is a complete basement in the house, something almost unheard of in the country up here. Fr. Kelley wanted to make the basement into some sort of youth center, but this never materialized, due mainly because of his failing health and his worsening diabetes. The provincial of the California Province then decided to relieve Fr. Kelley and assigned Fr. tom Savage, S.J. as the new administrator of the parish in the spring of 1962.

Fr. Savage arrived very shortly after Fr. Kelley left. In his own words, he "looked around and almost cried." All the land around the church was wild and filled with sage brush and as happens in so many places in the wild, with accumulated odds and ends making it look somewhat like the local dump. He set to work and within three years had cleared away all the debris and sage brush, built a fence around the acre of ground, and planted very small blue spruce trees all around the perimeter of the property. He began to mow whatever grass began to grow and over the next couple of years the land developed into what can best be described as a small park. He also enlarged the church by adding on a true sacristy and front entrance. He covered the siding with asbestos shingles and added a cover for the stairs in the front.

Fr. Andrew Dachauer, S.J. was assigned to help Fr. Savage for three months during the summer after he finished his theological studies and before going to Tertianship, the final year of a Jesuit's training. Fr. Dachauer is not a sports person, but his hobby is woodworking. With Fr. Savage's prodding and consent, he built the present sanctuary. When it was complete, the final act was to tear down the wall behind the old altar, exposing the new sanctuary with the altar now facing the people. Then, for the next seventeen years, Fr. Dachauer, now a professor of Chemistry at the University of San Francisco, spent three months each summer helping Fr. Savage. It was his vacation and very few people could understand how two such opposite personalities could survive together. It was a union made in heaven and it worked. It also laid the foundation for the provincial eventually assigning Fr. Dachauer as the man to succeed Fr. Savage as pastor.