"Miraculous staircase"!

We spent today exploring Santa Fe. We first visited St. Francis Cathedral Basilica, which, built in the Romanesque style, is one of the rare departures from the city's otherwise Pueblo architecture. Construction was begun in 1869 by Jean Baptiste Lamy, Santa Fe's first archbishop, working with French architects and Italian stonemasons. Then we continued to the Plaza, which was laid out by New Mexico governor Don Pedro de Peralta in 1607. On the north side of the plaza is the Palace of the Governors, a humble, one-story neo-Pueblo adobe and is the oldest public building in the U.S. built around the same time as the Plaza, about1610, it was the seat of four regional governments - those of Spain, Mexico, the Confederacy and the U.S. territory that preceded New Mexico's statehood, which was achieved in 1912. It is now part of the New Mexico History Museum, which was next in our tour. We had a delicious lunch at a little French pastry shop and cafe, located in La Fonda hotel which was built in 1922. After lunch, we went to the New Mexico Museum of Art and went on a docent-led tour. Designed by the same architect as built La Fonda, Isaac Hamilton Rapp, it is one of Santa Fe's earliest Pueblo Revival structures.

Then we visited the Loretto Chapel, which is famous for its "miraculous staircase". Formerly a Roman Catholic chapel, it is now a museum, and also used for weddings. In 1872, Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the Bishop of the Santa Fe Archdiocese, commissioned the building of a convent chapel, which would be in the care of the Sisters of Loretto. The chapel was designed by French architect Antoine Mouly in the Gothic Revival style. However, the architect died suddenly, and it was only after much of the chapel was constructed that the builders realized it was lacking any type of stairway to the choir loft. Carpenters were called in to address the problem, but they all concluded access to the loft would have to be via ladder as a staircase would interfere with the interior space of the small Chapel. Legend goes that to find a solution to the seating problem, the Sisters of the Chapel made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later, the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. After searching for the man and finding no trace of him, the Sisters concluded that he was St. Joseph himself, having come in answer to the sisters' prayers. The stairway's carpenter, whoever he was, built a magnificent structure. The design was innovative for the time and some of the design considerations still perplex experts today. The staircase has two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support. Also, it is said that the staircase was built without nails-only wooden pegs. The railings there today were not part of the original construction, they were added some years later. The riddle of the carpenter's identity was claimed to have been solved in the late 1990s by Mary Jean Straw Cook, who claims the builder's name was Francois-Jean "Frenchy" Rochas, an expert woodworker who emigrated from France and arrived in Santa Fe around the time the staircase was built, and who may have known or at least met another French contractor who worked on the Chapel. However, this remains unverified.

Next, we visited the Georgia O'Keefe Museum. Georgia O'Keefe was one of many East coast artists who visited New Mexico in the first half of the 20th century. She fell in love with the open skies and sun-drenched landscape, and returned every summer to travel and to paint, finally taking up permanent residency there.

It had been an overcast day, but finally the sun put in an appearance and we went to have a drink at the open-air, fifth floor bell tower bar of La Fonda, and stayed to watch the sun set.