| The Chapel of Our Lady of Light in Santa Fe, New | | | | built the wooden staircase without the use of nails, |
| Mexico, is the home of a wooden spiral staircase | | | | screws, or central support. After some time, the |
| steeped in mystery. Actually, it is not the staircase | | | | staircase was complete and the carpenter left, |
| that is the mystery, it is the lone carpenter who built | | | | without payment. The nuns planned a great feast, |
| it... | | | | but no one knew where the carpenter stayed or |
| In 1852, seven nuns left Kentucky travelling in | | | | where he may have gone, even the local lumberyard |
| covered wagons to Santa Fe to bring education and | | | | had no record of the purchase of wood. The nuns |
| religion to the growing city. Five nuns arrived in Santa | | | | began to believe it was St. Joseph himself, the father |
| Fe, one nun died of Cholera, one turned back too | | | | of Jesus, who built the awe-inspiring staircase. |
| sick to continue. Once in Santa Fe, the Sisters of | | | | Especially since there were exactly 33 stairs, the |
| Loretto set up camp and began their work. | | | | number of years Jesus was on Earth before |
| In 1873, construction began on the Chapel of Our | | | | ascending to heaven. |
| Lady of Light, the chapel commissioned along with | | | | There have been a few who claim to know who |
| Our Lady of Light Academy. The architect of the | | | | may have built the staircase. Some say Johann |
| beautiful gothic chapel was the charming and talented | | | | Hadwiger, a master carpenter, built the spiral |
| Projectus Mouly,18 year old son of master architect | | | | staircase. He spent 2 years traveling and working in |
| Antoine Mouly. Sadly, in 1878, just before it's | | | | the west, and after his death, his grandson found a |
| completion, the charismatic French architect was shot | | | | sketch of a spiral staircase with 33 steps in his old |
| and killed by John Lamy, the nephew of the | | | | toolbox. Perhaps it was Francois-Jean Rochas, whose |
| archbishop, because John believed his wife received | | | | death notice written in The Santa Fe New Mexican |
| too much of the young architect's attention. | | | | newspaper read "an expert worker in wood who built |
| The Loretto nuns were left with a beautiful chapel | | | | the staircase in the Loretto chapel". |
| and no stairway to the choir loft. It was determined | | | | So who built the mysterious spiral staircase? Man or |
| that the staircase in Mouly's plans wouldn't fit. Many | | | | Saint? Perhaps the better question is, if it were a |
| architects and carpenters visited the chapel, but none | | | | mere mortal man, does it really matter? Five nuns, in |
| could come up with a staircase to fit inside the chapel | | | | 1878 Santa Fe, prayed for someone to do what no |
| without remodelling the inside of the chapel itself, and | | | | other architect, engineer, craftsman, or carpenter |
| taking up valuable space. So the nuns prayed for an | | | | who visited the chapel before-hand could do, and |
| answer to their staircase dilemma. | | | | many visiting master carpenters and architects to this |
| Here begins the mystery... after eight days of prayer, | | | | day stand in awe of. They prayed for a miracle, a |
| an elderly carpenter with a mule and simple tools | | | | master carpenter, and he came. An elderly man with |
| arrived and said he could build the staircase. He alone | | | | his mule, his simple tools, and his humility. |