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