The staircase in Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe has long been presented as a miracle. The familiar story says the Sisters of Loretto needed a way to reach the choir loft, prayed a novena to St. Joseph, and were answered by a mysterious carpenter who appeared, built the staircase, and disappeared. The chapel itself still presents the staircase within that tradition of wonder.
The verified part is impressive enough without embellishment. Loretto Chapel is a Gothic Revival chapel begun in 1873 and completed in 1878. Its famous staircase rises roughly twenty feet, makes two full 360-degree turns, and is unusual because it lacks the obvious central pole people expect in a spiral stair. Even the chapel’s own description emphasizes its strange form and “no visible means of support.”
Where the miracle story weakens is in the leap from unusual design to supernatural origin. Architectural accounts treat the staircase as an ingenious feat of woodworking, not a defiance of physics. SAH Archipedia notes the absence of the usual center column and the use of wooden pegs, while the chapel itself describes the staircase as having no visible support rather than no support at all. In other words, the structure is extraordinary, but not structurally inexplicable.
The second problem for the miracle claim is historical. There is a plausible human builder: François-Jean “Frenchy” Rochas, a French woodworker whom later researchers linked to the staircase. The attribution is not airtight, but it is substantial enough to weaken the legend of the nameless stranger who left no trace. That matters because the story becomes less miraculous once craftsmanship, rather than mystery, enters the frame.
So what is the truth? Probably not a miracle in any provable historical or engineering sense. But neither is it a trivial tourist tale. The staircase is best understood as a genuine architectural marvel, made more famous by the devotional legend that gathered around it. What survives scrutiny is not the disappearance of physics, but the presence of astonishing skill.
David Mikkelson
If you liked what you just read and want more of Our Brew, subscribe to get notified. Just enter your email below.