Discover Tibet and Buddhism


Mystery of the Spiral Staircase

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 spiralwooden staircase without the use of nails,
staircase steeped in mystery. Actually, it isscrews, or central support. After some time,
not the staircase that is the mystery, it isthe 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 travellingcarpenter stayed or where he may have gone,
in covered wagons to Santa Fe to bringeven 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 diedbelieve it was St. Joseph himself, the father
of Cholera, one turned back too sick toof Jesus, who built the awe-inspiring
continue. Once in Santa Fe, the Sisters ofstaircase. 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 commissionedThere have been a few who claim to know who
along with Our Lady of Light Academy. Themay have built the staircase. Some say Johann
architect of the beautiful gothic chapel wasHadwiger, a master carpenter, built the
the charming and talented Projectus Mouly,18spiral staircase. He spent 2 years traveling
year old son of master architect Antoineand working in the west, and after his death,
Mouly. Sadly, in 1878, just before it'shis grandson found a sketch of a spiral
completion, the charismatic French architectstaircase with 33 steps in his old toolbox.
was shot and killed by John Lamy, the nephewPerhaps it was Francois-Jean Rochas, whose
of the archbishop, because John believed hisdeath notice written in The Santa Fe New
wife received too much of the youngMexican 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. ItSo who built the mysterious spiral staircase?
was determined that the staircase in Mouly'sMan or Saint? Perhaps the better question is,
plans wouldn't fit. Many architects andif it were a mere mortal man, does it really
carpenters visited the chapel, but none couldmatter? Five nuns, in 1878 Santa Fe, prayed
come up with a staircase to fit inside thefor someone to do what no other architect,
chapel without remodelling the inside of theengineer, 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 theirvisiting 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 dayselderly man with his mule, his simple tools,
of prayer, an elderly carpenter with a muleand his humility.
and simple tools arrived and said he could



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