Loretto Chapel | |
Location | 207 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, New Mexico |
---|---|
Coordinates | 35°41′8″N105°56′16″W / 35.68556°N 105.93778°W |
Built | 1878 |
Architect | Projectus Mouly |
Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
Part of | Santa Fe Historic District (ID73001150) |
NMSRCP No. | 218 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Designated CP | July 23, 1973 |
Designated NMSRCP | June 20, 1971 |
The Loretto Chapel is a former Roman Catholic church in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States, that is now a privately owned museum and a wedding chapel. [2]
It is known for its unusual helix-shaped spiral staircase (the "Miraculous Stair"). It has been the subject of legend, and the circumstances surrounding its construction and its builder were considered miraculous by the Sisters of Loretto, who credited Saint Joseph with its construction. [3]
The chapel was commissioned by the Sisters of Loretto for their girls' school, Loretto Academy, in 1873. Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy had brought in two French architects, Antoine Mouly and his son Projectus, to work on the St. Francis Cathedral project, and suggested that the Sisters could make use of their services on the side to build a much-needed chapel for the academy. [4] Projectus ended up being the main architect for the project, basing his Gothic Revival design—complete with spires, buttresses, and stained glass windows imported from France via the Santa Fe Trail—on the famous Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The chapel was built from locally quarried sandstone and took five years to complete, being officially consecrated in 1878. [5] [6]
Loretto Chapel was used on a daily basis by the students and nuns of Loretto Academy until the school closed in 1968. Afterwards, it became a privately owned museum and wedding venue, while the rest of the Academy campus was demolished.[ citation needed ]
Loretto Chapel is best known for its helix-shaped staircase (nicknamed "Miraculous Stair"), which rises 20 feet (6.1 m) to the choir loft while making two full turns, all without the support of a newel or central pole. The staircase is built mostly out of wood and is held together by wooden pegs, with no glue, nails or other hardware used. The inner stringer consists of seven wooden segments joined together with pegs, while the longer outer stringer has nine segments. The exact wood used to build the staircase has been confirmed to be a type of spruce which is not native to New Mexico and scientifically not identified anywhere else in the world. [7]
There are 33 stairs, which has been noted to be the age of Christ at the time of his death.
The handrails were added later, in 1887, and an iron bracket was later attached to a column to add additional support. [8] The staircase is supported by an inner wood stringer. [9] [10]
Apart from any claims of its miraculous nature, the staircase has been described as a remarkable feat of woodworking. According to a Washington Post column by Tim Carter: [11]
It's a magnificent work of art that humbles me as a master carpenter. To create a staircase like this using modern tools would be a feat. It's mind-boggling to think about constructing such a marvel with crude hand tools, no electricity and minimal resources.
According to another professional carpenter, who was interviewed by Ben Radford for his book Mysterious New Mexico : [7]
The execution is just incredible. The theory of how to do it, to bend it around in a two-turn spiral, that's some difficult arithmetic there.
The staircase was built sometime between 1877 and 1881. [4] By this point, the chapel was substantially complete but still lacking access to the choir loft, possibly due to the unexpected death of the architect, Projectus Mouly, in 1879. [12]
According to the version of events passed down by the Sisters of Loretto, multiple builders were consulted but were not able to find a workable solution due to the confined quarters. In response, the nuns prayed for nine straight days to Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the last day of the novena, a mysterious stranger appeared and offered to build the staircase. He worked alone using only a few simple hand tools and disappeared afterwards without collecting his pay or the Sisters learning his identity. More fantastical versions of the story have the work taking place overnight, while according to others, it took six to eight months. [7] [9] [13]
The finished staircase was an impressive work of carpentry, seeming to defy physics as it ascended 20 feet (6.1 m) without any obvious means of support. The Sisters of Loretto viewed its construction as a miracle and believed that the mysterious builder must have been Saint Joseph himself. As the story spread, the staircase became one of Santa Fe's most famous tourist attractions. [7]
The staircase as originally built lacked handrails and was reportedly so frightening to descend that some of the nuns and students did so on their hands and knees. Eventually, railings were added in 1887 by another craftsman, Phillip August Hesch. The stairs have been mostly closed to the public since the chapel became a privately run museum in the 1960s. [9]
The staircase lacks the newel or central pole usually used to support and stabilize a spiral staircase, and therefore the means of supporting the weight is not obvious. However, the staircase is supported by its stringers just like a conventional (straight) staircase, although in this case each stringer is twisted into a helix. [11] Observers have also noted that the inside stringer has such a tight radius that it is able to function similarly to a straight center support. [9] According to an analysis by a professional carpenter in Mysterious New Mexico, the assembly of the stringers from overlapping segments joined by wood glue[ inconsistent ] creates a laminate that is actually stronger than the wood alone. Additionally, the use of wooden pegs rather than nails prevents degradation of the joints due to compression set as the wood swells against the nails due to changes in humidity or temperature. [7]
Although the staircase as built lacked any external bracing, an iron support bracket was added in 1887 at the same time as the railings. This may have been intended to limit the degree of vertical travel arising from the helical shape, which effectively makes the staircase behave as a giant coil spring and is part of the reason spiral staircases usually have a central support. Even after this modification, users of the staircase reported "a certain amount of springiness". [9] Nevertheless, it was able to hold a significant amount of weight, as attested by a photo taken around 1959 of at least 20 choir members posing on the steps.
In the early 2000s, amateur historian Mary Jean Cook theorized the probable builder of the staircase as François-Jean "Frank" or "Frenchy" Rochas (1843–1894), a reclusive rancher and occasional carpenter who came to New Mexico from France around the 1870s. A key piece of evidence was a short article in the Santa Fe New Mexican in 1895 describing his death by murder, which noted: [14]
He was a Frenchman, and was favorably known in Santa Fe as an expert worker in wood. He build [sic] the handsome stair-case in the Loretto chapel and at St. Vincent sanitarium.
Cook also found an entry in the Sisters' logbook stating that Rochas had been paid US$150 (equivalent to $4,736in 2023) for "wood" in 1881, confirming that he had done some type of carpentry work for them. At the time of his death, Rochas reportedly owned an extensive set of carpentry tools including: [7] [15]
five saws, a saw clamp and set, nine planes, nineteen moulding planes, two squares, five gauges, six chisels, two gouges, a draw knife, a brace, three augers, ten auger bits, a reamer, two clamps, and a pair of trammel points (for drawing large circles)
Others have disputed Cook's theory. John Clark, a political speechwriter, writing in the National Catholic Register, stated that the memo in the logbook read "Paid for wood — Mr. Rochas for N. School" and contends this refers to a nearby school the sisters hired him to build, and that the logbook makes no mention of a staircase. [16] However, other sources quote the memo as more generally stating: "Paid for wood Mr Rochas, $150.00." [17] [18]
Although the design of the Loretto stairs is highly unusual, other spiral staircases without center supports are known to exist. One example can be found at the Old Washoe Club in Virginia City, Nevada, which also dates to the 1870s. This staircase was described by Ripley's Believe It or Not! as "the longest of its kind without a supporting pole", although it has fewer turns than the Loretto staircase. [7]
Further afield, another staircase is in the Gdańsk Town Hall in Poland, which was reported to the New Mexican in 1944 by a government official named Bonnie Foster. The paper wrote: [19]
It is tall, spiral, and without steel nails, but the wood is different. It is in the town hall, of the 14th to the 16th century. How it was constructed, and whether there is a miracle story back of it, Mrs. Foster could not say. But she declared it is strikingly like St. Joseph's in design.
Loretto Academy was founded in 1853 and continued to operate until 1968. Afterward, the previously all-male St. Michael's High School turned co-ed in order to accommodate the Academy's female students.[ citation needed ]
The story was the subject of the 1998 television film The Staircase, starring Barbara Hershey and William Petersen. [20]
The chapel was the setting of records research in Dark Winds episode "Hooghandi" [21]
The case was investigated and subsequently re-enacted in the Unsolved Mysteries episode "Miracle Staircase.” [22]
Young-adult author Ann Rinaldi based her book The Staircase on the Loretto Chapel.[ citation needed ]
Television show The UnXplained Investigated the spiral staircase in episode "Mysterious Structures".[ citation needed ]
The chapel is figured prominently in Canadian author Michael O'Brien's 2013 novel Voyage to Alpha Centauri. In flashbacks, protagonist Dr. Neil de Hoyos recalls visiting the chapel and marveling at the staircase as a child in Santa Fe. [23]
Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining pieces of wood, engineered lumber, or synthetic substitutes, to produce more complex items. Some woodworking joints employ mechanical fasteners, bindings, or adhesives, while others use only wood elements.
Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters traditionally worked with natural wood and did rougher work such as framing, but today many other materials are also used and sometimes the finer trades of cabinetmaking and furniture building are considered carpentry. In the United States, 98.5% of carpenters are male, and it was the fourth most male-dominated occupation in the country in 1999. In 2006 in the United States, there were about 1.5 million carpentry positions. Carpenters are usually the first tradesmen on a job and the last to leave. Carpenters normally framed post-and-beam buildings until the end of the 19th century; now this old-fashioned carpentry is called timber framing. Carpenters learn this trade by being employed through an apprenticeship training—normally four years—and qualify by successfully completing that country's competence test in places such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and South Africa. It is also common that the skill can be learned by gaining work experience other than a formal training program, which may be the case in many places.
Stairs are a structure designed to bridge a large vertical distance between lower and higher levels by dividing it into smaller vertical distances. This is achieved as a diagonal series of horizontal platforms called steps which enable passage to the other level by stepping from one to another step in turn. Steps are very typically rectangular. Stairs may be straight, round, or may consist of two or more straight pieces connected at angles.
A newel, also called a central pole or support column, is the central supporting pillar of a staircase. It can also refer to an upright post that supports and/or terminates the handrail of a stair banister. In stairs having straight flights it is the principal post at the foot of the staircase, but the term can also be used for the intermediate posts on landings and at the top of a staircase. Although its primary purpose is structural, newels have long been adorned with decorative trim and designed in different architectural styles.
Loretto may refer to:
Jean-Baptiste Lamy, was a French-American Roman Catholic prelate who served as the first Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Willa Cather's novel Death Comes for the Archbishop is based on his life and career, as is John Horgan's nonfiction work Lamy of Santa Fe. He sometimes anglicised his name to John Baptist Lamy.
The steel square is a tool used in carpentry. Carpenters use various tools to lay out structures that are square, many of which are made of steel, but the name steel square refers to a specific long-armed square that has additional uses for measurement, especially of various angles. It consists of a long, wider arm and a shorter, narrower arm, which meet at an angle of 90 degrees. Today the steel square is more commonly referred to as the framing square or carpenter's square, and such squares are no longer invariably made of steel ; they can also be made of aluminum or polymers, which are light and resistant to rust.
The Archdiocese of Santa Fe is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the southwestern region of the United States in the state of New Mexico. While the mother church, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, is in the city of Santa Fe, its administrative center is in the city of Albuquerque. The Diocese comprises the counties of Rio Arriba, Taos, Colfax, Union, Mora, Harding, Los Alamos, Sandoval, Santa Fe, San Miguel, Quay, Bernalillo, Valencia, Socorro, Torrance, Guadalupe, De Baca, Roosevelt, and Curry. The current archbishop is John Charles Wester, who was installed on June 4, 2015.
Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure, particularly a building, support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is generally called mass wall construction, where horizontal layers of stacked materials such as log building, masonry, rammed earth, adobe, etc. are used without framing.
The Staircase is a historical fiction novel by Ann Rinaldi.
The Scala Sancta are a set of 28 white marble steps located in an edifice on extraterritorial property of the Holy See in Rome, Italy proximate to the Archbasilica of Saint John in Laterano. Officially, the edifice is titled the Pontifical Sanctuary of the Holy Stairs, and incorporates part of the old Papal Lateran Palace. Replica stairs flank the original staircase, which may only be climbed on one's knees. The Holy Stairs lead to the Church of Saint Lawrence in Palatio ad Sancta Sanctorum or simply the "Sancta Sanctorum", which was the personal chapel of the early Popes.
El Santuario de Chimayó is a Roman Catholic church in Chimayo, New Mexico, United States. This shrine, a National Historic Landmark, is famous for the story of its founding and as a contemporary pilgrimage site. It receives almost 300,000 visitors per year and has been called "no doubt the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the United States."
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, commonly known as Saint Francis Cathedral, is a Catholic cathedral in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
The Sisters of Loretto or the Loretto Community is a Catholic religious institute that strives "to bring the healing Spirit of God into our world." Founded in the United States in 1812 and based in the rural community of Nerinx, Kentucky, the organization has communities in 16 US states and in Bolivia, Chile, China, Ghana, Pakistan, and Peru.
The Pueblo Revival style or Santa Fe style is a regional architectural style of the Southwestern United States, which draws its inspiration from Santa Fe de Nuevo México's traditional Pueblo architecture, the Spanish missions, and Territorial Style. The style developed at the beginning of the 20th century and reached its greatest popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, though it is still commonly used for new buildings. Pueblo style architecture is most prevalent in the state of New Mexico; it is often blended with Territorial Revival architecture.
Joseph Projectus Machebeuf was a French Roman Catholic missionary and the first Bishop of Denver.
The Staircase is a 1998 American television film about the story of the spiral staircase, believed by some to be miraculously built, at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It stars Barbara Hershey as Mother Madalyn in charge of the chapel and William Petersen as Joad, the traveling carpenter with spiritual talent as well as woodworking skill. It is based on the novel, The Staircase by Ann Rinaldi.
La Fonda on the Plaza is a historical luxury hotel, located at 100 E. San Francisco Street and Old Santa Fe Trail in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico adjacent to the Plaza. The hotel has been a member of Historic Hotels of America, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, since 1991. La Fonda simply means "the inn" in Spanish, but the hotel has been described as "the grand dame of Santa Fe's hotels."
Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment is a 2014 collection of thirteen investigations conducted by author Ben Radford into cases involving claims of the paranormal occurring in or with significant connections to New Mexico.
Mother Mary Praxedes Carty was an Irish American educator and member of the Roman Catholic order of the Sisters of Loretto. Mother Praxedes worked throughout the Southwestern and Western areas of the United States building and improving churches and schools. She is known for updating the constitution for the order of the Sisters of Loretto, helping to build the school now known as Webster University and for founding the Loretto Academy in El Paso, Texas.
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