The Loretto Chapel Staircase Up Close

Old Santa Fe Trail, a block south of the Plaza. A modest Gothic Revival church — pointed arches, small rose window, cream stucco. Easy to walk past. Inside: a double-helix staircase rising twenty feet to the choir loft with no central support column, no nails, no visible means of holding together. Made entirely of wood. Appears to defy gravity out of sheer stubbornness.

The story: when the chapel was completed in 1878, the architect had died with no plan for reaching the choir loft. The nuns prayed a novena to St. Joseph. On the ninth day, a man appeared with a donkey and a toolbox, built the staircase over months, and vanished without payment. Engineers since have identified the wood as a spruce species, the structure held by wooden pegs and an inner stringer working through tension. Knowing the mechanics doesn't diminish the experience.

Look at the base where the bottom tread meets the floor. There's a slight gap — the wood doesn't quite touch the stone. The whole structure flexes microscopically under weight, absorbing force like a living thing. A docent told me this and shrugged: "It should not work, and yet here it is." Five dollars admission. Fifteen minutes to see everything. I stayed for forty.