BOSTON – Gordon College has received a $60 million endowment gift – the largest in the Christian liberal arts college’s history – from a California couple with two grandchildren enrolled at the school.

The donation comes from a real estate developer and his wife and nearly triples the Wenham school’s current endowment of $33 million.

Gordon College will officially rename its campus the Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler Campus, after the donors. The school, founded in 1889, has about 1,700 undergraduate students and 100 graduate students.

“We believe in what they’re doing,” Dale Fowler said. “They’re putting out a wonderful form of education that is centered around the Bible. Gordon College may not have the enrollment of Harvard or Yale, but we didn’t see any motivation to give a major amount of money to a school that already has millions of dollars in endowments.”

Before the Fowlers’ gift, the largest single donation to the school was $7 million given over several years, according to the college’s president, R. Judson Carlberg.

“The gift is a wonderful surprise to us and will go a long way to giving the college a strong financial footing,” Carlberg said. “As a small liberal arts college, we are always encouraged when folks decide they want to support our mission.”

In the past, the Fowlers have funded new bleachers at the athletic complex and the refurbishment of buildings and landscaping. They also pledged to fund the salary, benefits, expenses and office space for an admissions recruiter in Southern California, where they live.