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Dorothy Copus Brush Easter and the wonderful staircase, Part II Last week's column related the 118-year-old
story of the famous spiral staircase located in the chapel of
the Sisters of Lorreto in Santa Fe, NM. The legend of the builder
has been retold numerous times for more than a century. He appeared
at the chapel with only a donkey and some tools and offered to
build the staircase. When he completed the work he vanished without
any pay or ever revealing his name. Most people called it a mystery, but to the
sisters it was a miracle. The chapel was almost completed when
it was discovered no stairs to the choir loft were in the plans
and now there was no room to add them. The sisters prayed to
St. Joseph, patron saint of carpenters, for a solution and this
man appeared at their door. Engineers marvel at the construction of the
graceful structure with its two complete 360-degree turns but
with no center support. Carpenters recognize the work of an expert
in the way the stringers were put together with great precision.
The wood is spliced in seven places on the inside and nine on
the outside, with each piece forming a part of a perfect curve.
Even the wood, which is a hard variety but not a native wood
of New Mexico, poses more questions since the local lumber yard
had no record of any wood being purchased. Because of the determination of a highly respected
amateur historian, the identity of the likely builder has been
discovered. Santa Fean Mary Jean Cook spent 11 years methodically
researching the mystery. She traveled to France four times during
those years before she announced her findings. Sixty-nine-year old Cook names the mystery
builder as Francois-Jean "Frank" Rochas also called
"Frenchy of Dog Canyon." He was a master French woodworker
living in a tiny wine-growing village near Grenoble, France.
Why he abandoned his family and friends to end up in the rugged
country called Dog Canyon is unknown. Located between the Sacramento Mountains and
White Sands in southern New Mexico, it was a favorite Apache
campsite. White settlers were disliked by the Apaches, but somehow
"Frenchy" got along with them and lived there as a
hermit rancher. Before spending his final years in this wild
country he had first worked in Santa Fe among French and other
European craftsmen building the grand St. Francis Cathedral.
Cook has no doubt he was a specialist and she believes he belonged
to an exclusive French secret society of talented artisans. She
agrees the staircase is very special and recognizes "Frenchy"
as a master craftsman. Cook and her husband were exploring Dog Canyon
in 1994 where they visited a small museum showing artifacts from
a 1977 excavation. There they saw a display case filled with
carpentry tools that had belonged to a Frenchman, Francois-Jean
Rochas. He was only 43 when he met a violent death. An unidentified
assailant had shot him and left him to die alone in his small
cabin. Cook went to the probate records and learned
his death had been in December 1894. She had searched early newspapers
years before, looking for mention of the mystery staircase with
no success. Now with a date she returned to the newspaper archives
and found the exciting proof. A one-paragraph death notice on Jan. 6, 1896 said of Rochas, "He was a Frenchman, and was favorably known in Santa Fe as an expert worker in wood." The last sentence proved Cook had solved the mystery. It read, "He built the handsome staircase in the Lorreto chapel." For Cook this was the confirmation she searched for over so many years. |