The Loretto Chapel’s Miraculous Staircase

To truly understand why over 250,000 people a year flock to the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, you have to look closer at the mystery that sits inside: the “Miraculous Staircase”

It’s a story that blends faith, architectural impossibility, and a 150-year-old cold case.

The Newly Apppointed Bishop of Santa Fe commissioned the Sisters of Loretto from Kentucky to come to Santa Fe and build a new school for girls.

The Problem: A Choir Loft with No Access:

When the Loretto Chapel was nearing completion in 1878, the Sisters of Loretto faced a crisis. The architect, P. Mouly, had passed away before finishing the plans, leaving a beautiful choir loft 22 feet in the air with absolutely no way to reach it.

Because the chapel was built in the narrow Gothic Revival style (a stark contrast to the sprawling adobes nearby), there simply wasn’t room for a standard staircase. Every carpenter in town gave the same verdict: a ladder was the only option. But for the sisters in their long, heavy habits, a 22-foot vertical climb was out of the question.

Believing that where man saw an impossibility, God saw a solution, the sisters began a nine-day novena (a series of prayers) to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters.

On the ninth day, a gray-haired stranger arrived on a donkey with nothing but a simple toolbox. He made one request: he must be allowed to work in total privacy. For months, he labored behind closed doors. When the work was finished, he vanished without asking for a penny of payment or even revealing his name. The sisters even took out an ad in the Santa Fe New Mexican to find him, but no one ever came forward.

What the mysterious stranger left behind is what many consider a “miracle in wood.” Here is why the staircase defies logic- and how modern science explains them

• The Impossible Physics: The staircase makes two complete 360-degree turns with no central supporting column. By all laws of 19th-century physics, it should have collapsed the moment the first nun stepped onto it. Modern architects have discovered that the staircase is a masterpiece of torsion. The inner “stringer” (the inside wood beam) is so tightly coiled that it acts as a virtual support column.
• No Metal, Just Wood: The entire structure was built without a single metal nail or glue. The builder used wooden pegs and dowels—a technique known as “trunnel” (tree-nail) construction.
  • The Secret Advantage: In the high-desert climate of Santa Fe, metal nails expand and contract differently than wood, eventually causing cracks. By using only wooden pegs, the builder ensured the entire structure breathed as one unit. It wasn’t magic; it was an advanced understanding of material science.
• The Missing Wood Type: Modern wood analysis has identified the material as a very specific type of spruce. The catch? This spruce is not native to New Mexico– or anywhere in the American Southwest.
  • Modern wood analysis identifies the material as a high-density Spruce. While it is true that this spruce does not grow in New Mexico, it is a staple of European cabinetry.
  • The Feat: The real mystery isn’t what the wood is, but how it got there. Bringing high-grade, non-native timber into the territory in the 1870s required a level of planning and funding that the Sisters- who were famously broke…somehow managed to overcome.
• The Number 33: There are exactly 33 steps…the age of Jesus at his crucifixion. You decide…

While the faithful believe the carpenter was St. Joseph himself, historians have spent decades looking for a more “earthly” explanation.

One popular theory points to a French woodworker named Francois-Jean “Frenchy” Rochas, who lived in the area at the time. An 1881 entry in the sisters’ daybook mentions a payment for wood to a “Mr. Rochas.” However, the staircase was completed years before this entry, and many still argue that even a master craftsman of that era couldn’t have executed this design without modern engineering.

When you stand at the base of the staircase today, look for the handrails. They weren’t part of the original design! The staircase was so steep and felt so “bouncy” (due to the lack of a center pole) that the sisters were reportedly terrified to use it, often crawling up on their hands and knees until the railing was added ten years later.

The chapel is now a private museum. Be sure to check their hours before you go, as it’s a very popular spot for Santa Fe weddings!