Loretto Chapel - Explanations For The Mystery

Explanations For The Mystery

The subject of rumor and legend for over a hundred years, the riddle of the carpenter's identity was claimed to have been solved in the late 1990s by Mary Jean Straw Cook, author of Loretto: The Sisters and Their Santa Fe Chapel (2002: Museum of New Mexico Press). The author 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, at only 43 years of age, Rochas met with a violent death in December 1894. Unidentified attackers had shot him and left him to die alone in his small cottage and he was found dead in 1895. Cook found a January 5, 1895, death notice in The New Mexican which named Rochas as the builder of "the handsome staircase in the Loretto chapel". Frenchman Quintus Monier told of Francois-Jean Rochas's death at Dog Canyon, near today's Alamogordo.

Johann Hadwiger, a German woodworker, was once credited with the design and construction of the stairs. The source of this claim, Johann's grandson Oscar Hadwiger, later admitted he had no proof.

Some more recent studies are critical of the supposed "miraculous" nature of the staircase. It has been claimed to be unsafe since its helix shape may make it oscillate just like a very large spring. As to its apparent ability to stand without a newel (central pole) support, this argument proceeds on a faulty premise that all spiral staircases need a central support. In fact, they do not, and lateral or outer supports can be effectively substituted for a central support. However, this staircase appears to have a concealed central support, an inner wood stringer of a very small radius that, because of its small size, functions effectively as a central pole. This technique is well known. The staircase also has an additional outer support to one of the columns that support the loft. This support was added later. The staircase may be made of spruce, but insufficient sampling makes it impossible to conclusively affirm (or deny) the source of this wood.