The Miraculous Stairway in the Loretto Chapel, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I took these photographs in April 2014 when I visited the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The chapel is famous for its “miraculous” staircase. The staircase has two 360-degree turns and no visible means of support.
When the church was completed in 1878, there wasn’t enough room for conventional stairs, and the Sisters of Loretto didn’t want to climb a ladder in the long skirts of their habits. They prayed for a miracle, the legend goes, and a mysterious carpenter came, who built the staircase. He asked for no pay and disappeared as mysteriously as he came. His identity is still unknown, and even some of his methods in building the freestanding spiral stairway have not been discerned, so it is indeed a miracle still. To read more about the Loretto Chapel and its staircase, click on the links beneath the photographs.
The bottom link is about Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy (October 11, 1814 – February 13, 1888). The archbishop commissioned the building of the Loretto Chapel. He was a French Roman Catholic prelate who served as the first Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the United States. The American writer Willa Cather’s novel “Death Comes for the Archbishop” is based on his life and career.
The miraculous staircase leads to the choir loft at the back of the Loretto Chapel, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Musicians practice for Holy Week events at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in this photograph from April 2014.
The Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was designed by French architect Antoine Mouly in the Gothic Revival style, complete with spires, buttresses, and stained glass windows imported from France.
About the Loretto Chapel Staircase
About Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy
Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy
Catherine Sherman 
Wow; how beautiful, Catherine.
It is not only a superb piece of architecture it is also a ‘modesty’ protective. Something the Sisters of Loretto would have found invaluable.
Wonderful images.
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