Santa Maria de Ovila
Encyclopedia
Santa María de Óvila is a former Cistercian monastery
built in Spain in the 13th century on the Tagus River near Trillo, Guadalajara
; about 90 miles (144.8 km) northeast of Madrid. During prosperous times over the next four centuries, construction projects expanded and improved the monastery. Its fortunes declined significantly in the 1700s, and in 1835 it was confiscated by the Spanish government and sold to private owners who used its buildings to shelter farm animals.
American millionaire William Randolph Hearst
bought parts of the monastery in 1931 with the intention of using its stones in the construction of a grand and fanciful castle
at Wyntoon
in California, but after some 10,000 stones were removed and shipped, they were abandoned in San Francisco for decades. These stones are now in various locations around California: some are reassembled at the University of San Francisco
, others are serving as simple decorative elements in Golden Gate Park
's botanical garden, and some are being reassembled by Trappist
monks at the Abbey of New Clairvaux
in Vina
. A line of Belgian-style beers is being produced by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
under the Ovila Abbey brand to support the reconstruction project.
In Spain, the new government of the Second Republic
declared the monastery a National Monument in June 1931, but not in time to prevent the mass removal of stones. Today, the original ruins are on the grounds of a private farm.
, awarded to monks from Valbuena Abbey
located in Valbuena de Duero
, Valladolid Province, Castile-Leon, Spain. In this endeavor, the king was following a general strategy of establishing Catholic institutions in land he had recently won in battle from the Moors of Iberia. The Cistercian "white monks" (wearing undyed habits
) first chose a site in Murel (now called Carrascosa de Tajo) on the Tagus but soon relocated a few miles nearer to Trillo, Guadalajara
, where a flat hilltop by the river commanded a modest view.
Construction began in 1181. The abbey, the monastic quarters, the cloister and the church were built over three decades. Some of the buildings were given seven-foot-thick (2 m) walls with slit windows, to serve as a refuge in case of renewed attack by the Moors. The aged abbot of Santa María de Huerta
, bishop Martin de Finojosa (later sainted), consecrated the chapel
in September 1213 and died days later. The surrounding area of Murel and Trillo along the Tagus prospered, giving tithes and gifts of land to the monastery. Alfonso VIII declared that the monastery was free of royal tariffs, allowing the monks to cut wood in the royal forest, and their cattle to graze on the king's land.
The first buildings were completed in the Gothic
style, including the chapel. The refectory
(dining hall) shows an architecture in transition between earlier Romanesque
and contemporary Gothic. Somewhat later, or perhaps at the same time, a fine High Gothic chapter house
was built of best quality hard limestone cut very neatly. The chapel was rebuilt in late Gothic style with a prominent vaulted ceiling
. The cloister
was rebuilt around 1617, and is a simple design with little adornment surrounding a High Renaissance arcade
. The final building project took place around 1650: a new doorway for the church, completed in late Renaissance
and Plateresque
style full of detail. Because of its prosperity and the repeated expansion projects, Santa María de Óvila contained examples of every Spanish religious architectural style used from 1200 to 1600.
, and by the Spanish Army. Neighbors looted more lands.
The precarious situation of the monastery was worsened in the 18th century by a fire which destroyed part of the monastery during the War of the Spanish Succession
. Subsequent wars caused considerable losses and major economic damage to the property. In the early 19th century, the nearby villagers denied support to the monastery despite its protection by King Ferdinand VII. The fatal blow came in 1835: the Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal
worked under the rule that minor religious holdings housing less than 12 residents were to be forfeited to the state; the monastery had only four monks and one lay brother
. They were cast out.
. The new owners of Santa Maria de Ovila were well-to-do farmers who cared little for the buildings. For a brief time, the former monastery was used as a hostel, but mainly, the buildings were subjected to hard agricultural use as barns sheltering livestock. The handsome chapter house served as a manure pit. In the early 20th century small trees were seen to be growing in the dirt packed atop the monastery roofs—its protective tiles had long since been taken down and sold.
; worth about 900 grams of gold, equivalent to roughly 600 to 700 U.S. dollars at the time. Beloso, director of the Spanish Credit Bank
in Madrid, was the owner of Coto de San Bernardo in Ovila with its expansive irrigated grain fields and forests, surrounding the monastery. Beloso sold the stones of the cloister, the chapter house, the refectory and the dormitory of novices for $85,000 to Arthur Byne, an art agent living in Madrid, his biggest client being American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst
. With Byne's commission, Hearst was to pay $97,000, a price roughly equivalent to $ million in today's currency. Byne first sketched the site in December 1930, and he took photographs of the monastery he referred to as "Mountolive", possibly to misdirect Spanish authorities. Byne specified mostly architectural details to be removed, such as vault ribs, door frames, window embrasures, columns and capitals. Some entire walls of fine facing stones were recommended. Byne started immediately with the project, organizing men and materials, and beginning to remove stones. Hearst's main architect Julia Morgan
sent her associate architect Walter T. Steilberg who arrived March 9, 1931. Under the direction of Byne and Steilberg, the monastery was carefully labeled as it was dismantled stone by stone. Antonio Gomez, the excellent local foreman praised by all who worked with him, numbered the blocks on architectural drawings and painted the number in red on the back of each stone.
To move all the stones, Byne and Steilberg had a spur road built to the Tagus, and a barge attached to a fixed steel cable was assigned to ferry stones across. An old World War I
trench railway
was brought in to transport stones from the monastery to the ferry; its rails could be laid into any of the buildings. Men pushed the small rail cars along the tracks. Cranes lifted stones onto and off the ferry at both sides of the river. One of the biggest problems was that Spain's three excelsior factories could not make enough packing material to keep the crate-packing crew supplied. At one point, realizing that the stones were likely to be used in California as external cladding for structural steel walls, Steilberg suggested the facing surface of the stones be sliced to a "veneer" the thickness of 6 inches (152.4 mm), for easier packing and shipping, but Hearst wanted to retain the authenticity of the full-sized stones. Byne and Steilberg judged certain walls worthless and left them in Spain. Steilberg returned home at the end of March.
Byne rushed the project in fear that it would be halted at any time by authorities—it was against the law to remove historic artifacts from Spain. However, the Spanish government was at that time in disarray and did not enforce the law. Government officials "simply looked the other way" as truck after truck full of 700-year-old stones rumbled through Valencia to the docks. When King Alfonso XIII
abdicated in April 1931, leaving the government in the control of the Second Republic
, the new officials stopped the project. Byne's lawyer persuaded the Minister of Labor to allow the work to continue—he understood that the illegal project employed more than a hundred men and put money into the severely depressed economy.
Doctor Francisco Layna Serrano of nearby Ruguilla had for years tried to save the monastery, failing to interest the government in the expensive preservation proposal. Realizing that this was his last chance to document the place as its stones were being removed, he wrote a monograph
of its history and included a site plan of the layout of buildings, written from memory. From his efforts, on June 3, 1931, Santa María de Óvila was listed as a National Monument of Spain, or Bien de Interés Cultural (Cultural Property). Layna published his monograph in 1932. In 1933, the monastery's historic cartulary was brought to the University of Madrid
and published; the original is kept at the University of Oviedo
.
By the time the dismantling was finished on July 1, 1931, some 10,000 stones weighing a total of 2200 short tons (1,964.3 LT) were shipped on 11 different freighters through the Panama Canal to San Francisco. Up to this time, the monastery project had cost Hearst about one million dollars.
. The winery, or bodega, is the oldest surviving building on site. Its upper floor was built as a dormitory 27 by with a long barrel vaulted ceiling. There are crumbling walls, yards, double arches of the Renaissance-era cloister, and part of the Gothic roof of the church turned into a garage and storage.
The church was built in the shape of a Latin cross with a nave
divided into four sections, and a sanctuary with three apse
s. The presbytery
had a central square topped by a pentagon; the side apses were square. The great cloister
was built south of the temple. Its external arches are still standing but the arched roof is lost. To the west of the cloister stands a barrel-vaulted great nave which was used as a warehouse and storage space for supplies and tools. On the eastern side of the cloister lies the monastery, the sacristy, the priory cell, and the chapter house stripped of detail.
, on the bank of the McCloud River
near Mount Shasta
in remote Northern California; the Bernard Maybeck
-designed fantasy chalet had burned down in 1929. Hearst wished to replace it with a single large stone building fitted with towers and turrets—an eccentric castle folly
on a heroic scale. The monastery would serve as cladding walls and rooms on the ground floor. Hearst had already bought a Spanish monastery in 1925, at that time crated and stored in a warehouse in the Bronx
. (In 1954 it was re-assembled in Florida as a tourist attraction which was later made the St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church
.) Byne was given the task of finding the right historic buildings to be used at Wyntoon. When he located and purchased Santa María de Óvila, Hearst's architect Morgan sent Steilberg, an associate architect and structural engineer, to Spain with a full set of the preliminary plans for Wyntoon, so he could compare the project to the building's possibilities.
The 10,000 stones were shipped in 11 batches to the Port of San Francisco
where each arrival was inspected by Steilberg; several thousand crates in all. The Haslett warehouse was used for storage, between Fisherman's Wharf and the Hyde Street Pier
. With groundbreaking set for July 1931 and the last freighter carrying stones still in transit, Hearst stopped all plans for Wyntoon because his fortunes were too far reduced, with too many projects to fund and the Great Depression
shrinking his cash flow significantly. The stones stayed in the warehouse, incurring annual storage fees of $15,000.
requested that it be returned to Spain, but Hearst refused. In August 1941, Herbert Fleishhacker
, director of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
, convinced Hearst to give the stones to the City of San Francisco in exchange for the payment by the city of his $25,000 storage debt. Hearst stipulated the stones be used to construct a group of museum buildings in Golden Gate Park
, adjoining the de Young Museum. The city moved the crates from the warehouse to store them outdoors behind the de Young Museum and the Japanese Tea Garden, allotting only $5,000 for trucking and for building rough sheds and protective covers. The museum plan was estimated to cost $500,000 but that amount was not available. Morgan eagerly drew up restrained and conservative plans for the museum, this project being more in her personal style than the fantasy of Wyntoon. She prepared several layouts for the city to approve, the final one having a different arrangement of the buildings than in Spain. However, in December 1941, the U.S. was drawn into direct combat in World War II
and the museum plans were shelved. Picking up the project in 1946, the city paid Morgan to construct a scale model of the complex of buildings which was to be the Museum of Medieval Arts, a West Coast version of The Cloisters
in New York.
The city was unable to raise money to build the museum, and the stones were damaged in five fires. The first came soon after the crates were set down in Golden Gate Park. Morgan said that "piles of burning boxes were pulled over and down by the Fire Department, many hurled over a hundred and fifty feet." Hearst died in 1951, and Morgan died in 1957; neither of them saw anything built with the stones. Two fires in 1959 appeared to be arson, and many of the stones were weakened or cracked from heat and sudden cooling by water. In 1960, Steilberg was hired to inspect the stones once again; he used a ball-peen hammer
to lightly strike each stone and listen for a solid ringing tone or a dull thud which indicated cracking. He found that a little more than half the stones were sound.
In 1989 or 1990 a San Francisco city worker dumped an unused granite bollard
amid the monastery stones; the 4 feet (1.2 m) tall bollard was once used as a traffic barrier. Some Hindu-styled park users led by performance artist Michael Bowen
, calling himself Guru Baba Kali Das, began to worship the phallus-shaped bollard as a lingam
; they wrestled some of the monastery's stones into a religious circle, calling the circle Shiva Linga. The city sued to reclaim the area in 1993 but lost the battle in court. In January 1994 the city arranged to move the traffic bollard to Bowen's garage, serving as his temple. Bowen later offered the granite bollard for sale and admitted that the whole episode was a performance piece
.
In 1999 some of the stones were used to construct an outdoor reading terrace adjoining the Helen Crocker Russell Library of Horticulture, part of the Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. Other stones were used for various purposes around Golden Gate Park and the Japanese Tea Garden, taken unofficially by park workers as they saw fit. Some of these ended up in the park's AIDS Memorial Grove
, others on a scent-based flower walkway named Garden of Fragrance.
(a Jesuit university
) in 2002 and in 2008 it was associated with the construction of Kalmanovitz Hall. It serves as the backdrop of the outdoor Ovila Amphitheater (37.7757°N 122.451°W), near an older Romanesque portal from Northern Italy.
, saw the stones and pictured them reassembled as a monastery. On September 15, 1955—his first day in California—arriving by airplane to serve in Vina, California
, at Our Lady of New Clairvaux, Trappists of the order known as Cistercians of the Strict Observance, his superior drove him through Golden Gate Park where they stopped to see the stones sitting among the weeds. From time to time in subsequent years, Davis inspected the stones to see that they were faring poorly, subject to weather and vandalism.
In 1981, Margaret Burke, holding a doctorate in architectural history, began working under a grant from the Hearst Foundation to inventory the remaining stones. She said it was "an excavation project" because of the weeds, blackberry brambles and tree roots growing over them. Burke identified about 60% of the stones belonging to the chapter house, a rectangular building 31 by. Davis proposed that the chapter house be rebuilt in Vina, and in 1982 he had several truckloads of stones delivered, but they were returned because of ownership questions. Davis made two further requests for the chapter house stones, in 1983 and 1987, but was unsuccessful in obtaining them. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the de Young museum was to be rebuilt, and the city was stimulated into action. In 1992, a new museum director approved the deaccessioning and permanent loan of the chapter house stones to New Clairvaux, a monastery at Vina, located on land once owned by Leland Stanford
, used to grow wine grapes and make wine. In 1994, the city approved with the stipulation that the building be restored accurately and that it be occasionally open to the public. The stones were transported in 20 truckloads to Vina. Inside an old brick barn used by Stanford to make brandy, the stones began to be fitted together, the walls laid on their sides on plywood.
Ground was broken in 2003 on the site of an orchard (39.9372°N 122.0632°W) next to the main cloister building. Architect Patrick Cole of Arcademe, overseeing the rebuilding project, said that there were more than half of the required stones for the chapter house, and more than 90% of the repeating-pattern stones needed as templates to carve replacements. Stonemasons
Oskar Kempf and Frank Helmholz used modern hydraulic lime
as mortar
rather than making their own as was done in the Middle Ages. Helmholz said of the opportunity offered by the project that it was "something most stonemasons don't do in all their career." The strength of the building is doubled, with the stones supporting their own weight as designed, augmented by a framework of steel and concrete to hold them together when the California ground shakes. Contractor Phil Sunseri said that the building foundation was earthquake resistant as well; with a three-foot-thick (1 m) mat of concrete and steel underneath, "the entire building will move as one unit." When completed, the building will be the largest example of original Cistercian Gothic architecture in the Western Hemisphere, and the oldest building in America "west of the Rockies
".
Nearby Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
partnered with the monks of New Clairvaux to make a series of Belgian-style beers under the Ovila Abbey brand. In late 2010, the beer producer mounted a website to tell about the making of the beer product line and the story of the restoration of the stones. Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman said he had long been interested in making a line of Belgian beers, and the abbey's project provided a good opportunity. The first product, a Dubbel
, was released in March 2011, followed in July by a Saison
and in November by a Quadrupel
. Sierra Nevada has dedicated a percentage of the beer sales to assist in funding the rebuilding project.
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
built in Spain in the 13th century on the Tagus River near Trillo, Guadalajara
Trillo, Guadalajara
Trillo is a municipality located in the province of Guadalajara, Spain. According to the 2007 census , the municipality has a population of 1,371 inhabitants....
; about 90 miles (144.8 km) northeast of Madrid. During prosperous times over the next four centuries, construction projects expanded and improved the monastery. Its fortunes declined significantly in the 1700s, and in 1835 it was confiscated by the Spanish government and sold to private owners who used its buildings to shelter farm animals.
American millionaire William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
bought parts of the monastery in 1931 with the intention of using its stones in the construction of a grand and fanciful castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
at Wyntoon
Wyntoon
Wyntoon is the name of a private estate on the McCloud River in rural Siskiyou County, California, owned by the Hearst Corporation. Famous architects Willis Polk, Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan all designed structures for Wyntoon....
in California, but after some 10,000 stones were removed and shipped, they were abandoned in San Francisco for decades. These stones are now in various locations around California: some are reassembled at the University of San Francisco
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco , is a private, Jesuit/Catholic university located in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1855, USF was established as the first university in San Francisco. It is the second oldest institution for higher learning in California and the tenth-oldest university of...
, others are serving as simple decorative elements in Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
's botanical garden, and some are being reassembled by Trappist
TRAPPIST
TRAPPIST is Belgian robotic telescope in Chile which came online in 2010, and is an acronym for TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope, so named in homage to Trappist beer produced in the Belgian region. Situated high in the Chilean mountains at La Silla Observatory, it is actually...
monks at the Abbey of New Clairvaux
Abbey of New Clairvaux
The Abbey of New Clairvaux is a rural Trappist monastery located in Northern California in the small town of Vina in Tehama County. The farmland, once owned by Leland Stanford, grows prunes, walnuts, and grapes which the monks harvest from the orchards and vineyards to sustain the...
in Vina
Vina, California
Vina is a census-designated place in Tehama County, California. Vina sits at an elevation of . The 2010 United States census reported Vina's population was 237....
. A line of Belgian-style beers is being produced by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
The Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was established in 1980 by homebrewers Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi.Located in Chico, California, Sierra Nevada Brewing is one of the top craft breweries currently operating in the United States. Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is the second best-selling craft beer in the...
under the Ovila Abbey brand to support the reconstruction project.
In Spain, the new government of the Second Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
declared the monastery a National Monument in June 1931, but not in time to prevent the mass removal of stones. Today, the original ruins are on the grounds of a private farm.
Foundation
The monastery of Santa Maria de Ovila was initiated in 1175 by a grant from King Alfonso VIII of CastileAlfonso VIII of Castile
Alfonso VIII , called the Noble or el de las Navas, was the King of Castile from 1158 to his death and King of Toledo. He is most remembered for his part in the Reconquista and the downfall of the Almohad Caliphate...
, awarded to monks from Valbuena Abbey
Valbuena Abbey
Valbuena Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery in Valbuena de Duero in Valladolid Province, Castile-Leon, Spain. It stands on the right bank of the Duero, within sight of the royal castle of Peñafiel.- History :...
located in Valbuena de Duero
Valbuena de Duero
Valbuena de Duero is a municipality located in the province of Valladolid, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 502 inhabitants.-Villages:...
, Valladolid Province, Castile-Leon, Spain. In this endeavor, the king was following a general strategy of establishing Catholic institutions in land he had recently won in battle from the Moors of Iberia. The Cistercian "white monks" (wearing undyed habits
Religious habit
A religious habit is a distinctive set of garments worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognisable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anachoritic life, although in their case without conformity to a particular uniform...
) first chose a site in Murel (now called Carrascosa de Tajo) on the Tagus but soon relocated a few miles nearer to Trillo, Guadalajara
Trillo, Guadalajara
Trillo is a municipality located in the province of Guadalajara, Spain. According to the 2007 census , the municipality has a population of 1,371 inhabitants....
, where a flat hilltop by the river commanded a modest view.
Construction began in 1181. The abbey, the monastic quarters, the cloister and the church were built over three decades. Some of the buildings were given seven-foot-thick (2 m) walls with slit windows, to serve as a refuge in case of renewed attack by the Moors. The aged abbot of Santa María de Huerta
Santa María de Huerta
Santa María de Huerta is a municipality located in the province of Soria, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 419 inhabitants....
, bishop Martin de Finojosa (later sainted), consecrated the chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
in September 1213 and died days later. The surrounding area of Murel and Trillo along the Tagus prospered, giving tithes and gifts of land to the monastery. Alfonso VIII declared that the monastery was free of royal tariffs, allowing the monks to cut wood in the royal forest, and their cattle to graze on the king's land.
The first buildings were completed in the Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
style, including the chapel. The refectory
Refectory
A refectory is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries...
(dining hall) shows an architecture in transition between earlier Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
and contemporary Gothic. Somewhat later, or perhaps at the same time, a fine High Gothic chapter house
Chapter house
A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room attached to a cathedral or collegiate church in which meetings are held. They can also be found in medieval monasteries....
was built of best quality hard limestone cut very neatly. The chapel was rebuilt in late Gothic style with a prominent vaulted ceiling
Vault (architecture)
A Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert lateral thrust that require a counter resistance. When vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required...
. The cloister
Cloister
A cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...
was rebuilt around 1617, and is a simple design with little adornment surrounding a High Renaissance arcade
Arcade (architecture)
An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....
. The final building project took place around 1650: a new doorway for the church, completed in late Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
and Plateresque
Plateresque
Plateresque, meaning "in the manner of a silversmith" , was an artistic movement, especially architectural, traditionally held to be exclusive to Spain and its territories, which appeared between the late Gothic and early Renaissance in the late 15th century, and spread over the next two centuries...
style full of detail. Because of its prosperity and the repeated expansion projects, Santa María de Óvila contained examples of every Spanish religious architectural style used from 1200 to 1600.
Decline
From the 15th century Santa María de Óvila began a slow decline. Civil wars gradually depopulated the villages of the upper Tagus valley. The monastery's land holdings passed one by one into the hands of the new regional aristocracy: first the Count of Cifuentes, followed by Rui Gomes da Silva, Duke of PastranaRui Gomes da Silva, 1st Prince of Éboli
Don Rui Gomes da Silva, 1st Prince of Éboli and 1st Duke of Pastrana and Estremera, and iure uxoris Prince of Mélito, Duke of Francavilla and Count of Aliano . He was a Portuguese noble and one of King Philip's main advisers...
, and by the Spanish Army. Neighbors looted more lands.
The precarious situation of the monastery was worsened in the 18th century by a fire which destroyed part of the monastery during the War of the Spanish Succession
War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...
. Subsequent wars caused considerable losses and major economic damage to the property. In the early 19th century, the nearby villagers denied support to the monastery despite its protection by King Ferdinand VII. The fatal blow came in 1835: the Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal
Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal
The Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizabal, more often referred to simply as La Desamortización, encompasses a set of decrees from 1835-1837 that resulted in the expropriation, and privatization, of monastic properties in Spain....
worked under the rule that minor religious holdings housing less than 12 residents were to be forfeited to the state; the monastery had only four monks and one lay brother
Lay brother
In the most common usage, lay brothers are those members of Catholic religious orders, particularly of monastic orders, occupied primarily with manual labour and with the secular affairs of a monastery or friary, in contrast to the choir monks of the same monastery who are devoted mainly to the...
. They were cast out.
Vacancy
After the Confiscations, many of the furnishings and artistic treasures of Santa María de Óvila passed to the surrounding parish churches, especially Ruguilla, Huet, Sotoca de Tajo and Carrascosa de Tajo. Other valuables such as books and historic documents were stolen and sold. The remaining contents were auctioned, including wine making equipment and an oxcart. The cartulary of the monastery, a thick manuscript holding copies of royal privileges granted to the monastery in the Middle Ages, went to a private owner. The Abadologio, a comprehensive and thorough history of the Cistercian monks who lived in the monastery, is carefully kept at the Monastery of Santa María la Real of OseiraMonastery of Santa María la Real of Oseira
The monastery of Oseira is a Trappist monastery in Galicia, Spain.It is known in Galician as Mosteiro de Santa María de Oseira and in Castilian as Monasterio de Santa María la Real de Oseira....
. The new owners of Santa Maria de Ovila were well-to-do farmers who cared little for the buildings. For a brief time, the former monastery was used as a hostel, but mainly, the buildings were subjected to hard agricultural use as barns sheltering livestock. The handsome chapter house served as a manure pit. In the early 20th century small trees were seen to be growing in the dirt packed atop the monastery roofs—its protective tiles had long since been taken down and sold.
Hearst
In 1928 the Spanish state sold the monastery to Fernando Beloso for 3,130 pesetasSpanish peseta
The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1869 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra .- Etymology :...
; worth about 900 grams of gold, equivalent to roughly 600 to 700 U.S. dollars at the time. Beloso, director of the Spanish Credit Bank
Banesto
Banesto is a Spanish bank, 88.4% owned by Banco Santander. Currently Banesto is the fifth-largest banking group in Spain, operating around 1,770 branches....
in Madrid, was the owner of Coto de San Bernardo in Ovila with its expansive irrigated grain fields and forests, surrounding the monastery. Beloso sold the stones of the cloister, the chapter house, the refectory and the dormitory of novices for $85,000 to Arthur Byne, an art agent living in Madrid, his biggest client being American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
. With Byne's commission, Hearst was to pay $97,000, a price roughly equivalent to $ million in today's currency. Byne first sketched the site in December 1930, and he took photographs of the monastery he referred to as "Mountolive", possibly to misdirect Spanish authorities. Byne specified mostly architectural details to be removed, such as vault ribs, door frames, window embrasures, columns and capitals. Some entire walls of fine facing stones were recommended. Byne started immediately with the project, organizing men and materials, and beginning to remove stones. Hearst's main architect Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan was an American architect. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California...
sent her associate architect Walter T. Steilberg who arrived March 9, 1931. Under the direction of Byne and Steilberg, the monastery was carefully labeled as it was dismantled stone by stone. Antonio Gomez, the excellent local foreman praised by all who worked with him, numbered the blocks on architectural drawings and painted the number in red on the back of each stone.
To move all the stones, Byne and Steilberg had a spur road built to the Tagus, and a barge attached to a fixed steel cable was assigned to ferry stones across. An old World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
trench railway
Trench railways
Trench Railways represented military adaptation of early 20th century railway technology to the problem of keeping soldiers supplied during the static trench warfare phase of World War I...
was brought in to transport stones from the monastery to the ferry; its rails could be laid into any of the buildings. Men pushed the small rail cars along the tracks. Cranes lifted stones onto and off the ferry at both sides of the river. One of the biggest problems was that Spain's three excelsior factories could not make enough packing material to keep the crate-packing crew supplied. At one point, realizing that the stones were likely to be used in California as external cladding for structural steel walls, Steilberg suggested the facing surface of the stones be sliced to a "veneer" the thickness of 6 inches (152.4 mm), for easier packing and shipping, but Hearst wanted to retain the authenticity of the full-sized stones. Byne and Steilberg judged certain walls worthless and left them in Spain. Steilberg returned home at the end of March.
Byne rushed the project in fear that it would be halted at any time by authorities—it was against the law to remove historic artifacts from Spain. However, the Spanish government was at that time in disarray and did not enforce the law. Government officials "simply looked the other way" as truck after truck full of 700-year-old stones rumbled through Valencia to the docks. When King Alfonso XIII
Alfonso XIII of Spain
Alfonso XIII was King of Spain from 1886 until 1931. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, was appointed regent during his minority...
abdicated in April 1931, leaving the government in the control of the Second Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
, the new officials stopped the project. Byne's lawyer persuaded the Minister of Labor to allow the work to continue—he understood that the illegal project employed more than a hundred men and put money into the severely depressed economy.
Doctor Francisco Layna Serrano of nearby Ruguilla had for years tried to save the monastery, failing to interest the government in the expensive preservation proposal. Realizing that this was his last chance to document the place as its stones were being removed, he wrote a monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
of its history and included a site plan of the layout of buildings, written from memory. From his efforts, on June 3, 1931, Santa María de Óvila was listed as a National Monument of Spain, or Bien de Interés Cultural (Cultural Property). Layna published his monograph in 1932. In 1933, the monastery's historic cartulary was brought to the University of Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...
and published; the original is kept at the University of Oviedo
University of Oviedo
The University of Oviedo is a public university in Asturias . It's the only university in the region. It has three campus and research centres, located in Oviedo, Gijón and Mieres.-History:...
.
By the time the dismantling was finished on July 1, 1931, some 10,000 stones weighing a total of 2200 short tons (1,964.3 LT) were shipped on 11 different freighters through the Panama Canal to San Francisco. Up to this time, the monastery project had cost Hearst about one million dollars.
Spanish ruins
Little remains today of the original monastery in Spain. The foundation of the church exists, and the winery's foundation which was built in the 13th century during the reign of Henry I of CastileHenry I of Castile
Henry I of Castile was king of Castile. He was the son of Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Eleanor Plantagenet, ....
. The winery, or bodega, is the oldest surviving building on site. Its upper floor was built as a dormitory 27 by with a long barrel vaulted ceiling. There are crumbling walls, yards, double arches of the Renaissance-era cloister, and part of the Gothic roof of the church turned into a garage and storage.
The church was built in the shape of a Latin cross with a nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
divided into four sections, and a sanctuary with three apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
s. The presbytery
Presbytery (architecture)
The presbytery is the name for an area in a church building which is reserved for the clergy.In the oldest church it is separated by short walls, by small columns and pilasters in the Renaissance ones; it can also be raised, being reachable by a few steps, usually with railings....
had a central square topped by a pentagon; the side apses were square. The great cloister
Cloister
A cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...
was built south of the temple. Its external arches are still standing but the arched roof is lost. To the west of the cloister stands a barrel-vaulted great nave which was used as a warehouse and storage space for supplies and tools. On the eastern side of the cloister lies the monastery, the sacristy, the priory cell, and the chapter house stripped of detail.
Wyntoon
Hearst first bought the monastery intending to replace the family retreat at WyntoonWyntoon
Wyntoon is the name of a private estate on the McCloud River in rural Siskiyou County, California, owned by the Hearst Corporation. Famous architects Willis Polk, Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan all designed structures for Wyntoon....
, on the bank of the McCloud River
McCloud River
The McCloud River is a river that flows east of and parallel to the Sacramento River, long, in northern California in the United States. It drains a scenic mountainous area of the Cascade Range north of Redding...
near Mount Shasta
Mount Shasta
Mount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...
in remote Northern California; the Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Ralph Maybeck was a architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was a professor at University of California, Berkeley...
-designed fantasy chalet had burned down in 1929. Hearst wished to replace it with a single large stone building fitted with towers and turrets—an eccentric castle folly
Folly
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs...
on a heroic scale. The monastery would serve as cladding walls and rooms on the ground floor. Hearst had already bought a Spanish monastery in 1925, at that time crated and stored in a warehouse in the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
. (In 1954 it was re-assembled in Florida as a tourist attraction which was later made the St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church
St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church
St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church is a medieval Spanish monastery cloister which was built in the town of Sacramenia in Segovia, Spain, in the 12th century but dismantled in the 20th century and shipped to New York in the United States. It was eventually reassembled in North Miami Beach, Florida,...
.) Byne was given the task of finding the right historic buildings to be used at Wyntoon. When he located and purchased Santa María de Óvila, Hearst's architect Morgan sent Steilberg, an associate architect and structural engineer, to Spain with a full set of the preliminary plans for Wyntoon, so he could compare the project to the building's possibilities.
The 10,000 stones were shipped in 11 batches to the Port of San Francisco
Port of San Francisco
The Port of San Francisco lies on the western edge of the San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate. It has been called one of the three great natural harbors in the world, but it took two long centuries for navigators from Spain and England to find the anchorage originally called Yerba Buena...
where each arrival was inspected by Steilberg; several thousand crates in all. The Haslett warehouse was used for storage, between Fisherman's Wharf and the Hyde Street Pier
Hyde Street Pier
The Hyde Street Pier is a historic ferry pier located on the northern waterfront of San Francisco, California, amidst the tourist zone of Fisherman's Wharf....
. With groundbreaking set for July 1931 and the last freighter carrying stones still in transit, Hearst stopped all plans for Wyntoon because his fortunes were too far reduced, with too many projects to fund and the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
shrinking his cash flow significantly. The stones stayed in the warehouse, incurring annual storage fees of $15,000.
Golden Gate Park
In 1940, Hearst decided to give the monastery away. The government of Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
requested that it be returned to Spain, but Hearst refused. In August 1941, Herbert Fleishhacker
Herbert Fleishhacker
Herbert Fleishhacker , son of Aaron Fleishhacker and Delia Fleishhacker, was an American businessman, civic leader and philanthropist. He built Fleishhacker Pool, the world's largest swimming pool, in 1924....
, director of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...
, convinced Hearst to give the stones to the City of San Francisco in exchange for the payment by the city of his $25,000 storage debt. Hearst stipulated the stones be used to construct a group of museum buildings in Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
, adjoining the de Young Museum. The city moved the crates from the warehouse to store them outdoors behind the de Young Museum and the Japanese Tea Garden, allotting only $5,000 for trucking and for building rough sheds and protective covers. The museum plan was estimated to cost $500,000 but that amount was not available. Morgan eagerly drew up restrained and conservative plans for the museum, this project being more in her personal style than the fantasy of Wyntoon. She prepared several layouts for the city to approve, the final one having a different arrangement of the buildings than in Spain. However, in December 1941, the U.S. was drawn into direct combat in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the museum plans were shelved. Picking up the project in 1946, the city paid Morgan to construct a scale model of the complex of buildings which was to be the Museum of Medieval Arts, a West Coast version of The Cloisters
The Cloisters
The Cloisters is a museum located in Fort Tryon Park, New York City. The building, which is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was reconstructed in the 1930s from the architectural elements of several European medieval abbeys...
in New York.
The city was unable to raise money to build the museum, and the stones were damaged in five fires. The first came soon after the crates were set down in Golden Gate Park. Morgan said that "piles of burning boxes were pulled over and down by the Fire Department, many hurled over a hundred and fifty feet." Hearst died in 1951, and Morgan died in 1957; neither of them saw anything built with the stones. Two fires in 1959 appeared to be arson, and many of the stones were weakened or cracked from heat and sudden cooling by water. In 1960, Steilberg was hired to inspect the stones once again; he used a ball-peen hammer
Ball-peen hammer
A ball-peen hammer, also known as a machinist's hammer, is a type of peening hammer used in metalworking. It is distinguished from a point-peen hammer or chisel-peen hammer by having a hemispherical head...
to lightly strike each stone and listen for a solid ringing tone or a dull thud which indicated cracking. He found that a little more than half the stones were sound.
In 1989 or 1990 a San Francisco city worker dumped an unused granite bollard
Bollard
A bollard is a short vertical post. Originally it meant a post used on a ship or a quay, principally for mooring. The word now also describes a variety of structures to control or direct road traffic, such as posts arranged in a line to obstruct the passage of motor vehicles...
amid the monastery stones; the 4 feet (1.2 m) tall bollard was once used as a traffic barrier. Some Hindu-styled park users led by performance artist Michael Bowen
Michael Bowen (artist)
Michael Bowen was an American fine artist known as one of the co-founders of the late 20th and 21st century Visionary art movements...
, calling himself Guru Baba Kali Das, began to worship the phallus-shaped bollard as a lingam
Lingam
The Lingam is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples....
; they wrestled some of the monastery's stones into a religious circle, calling the circle Shiva Linga. The city sued to reclaim the area in 1993 but lost the battle in court. In January 1994 the city arranged to move the traffic bollard to Bowen's garage, serving as his temple. Bowen later offered the granite bollard for sale and admitted that the whole episode was a performance piece
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
.
In 1999 some of the stones were used to construct an outdoor reading terrace adjoining the Helen Crocker Russell Library of Horticulture, part of the Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. Other stones were used for various purposes around Golden Gate Park and the Japanese Tea Garden, taken unofficially by park workers as they saw fit. Some of these ended up in the park's AIDS Memorial Grove
AIDS Memorial Grove
The National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, is a dedicated space in the national landscape where millions of Americans touched directly or indirectly by AIDS can gather to heal, hope, and remember...
, others on a scent-based flower walkway named Garden of Fragrance.
University of San Francisco
For many years the stones lay exposed to weather and vandalism. In 1964–1965, the Museum Society raised $40,000 to mount the grand portal of the old church. It was in March 1931 that Hearst had agreed to purchase this church portal upon Steilberg's recommendation and at Byne's price of $1,500. The portal was installed in 1965 in the de Young Museum, the centerpiece of Hearst Court, the main exhibit hall. The church portal was donated to the University of San FranciscoUniversity of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco , is a private, Jesuit/Catholic university located in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1855, USF was established as the first university in San Francisco. It is the second oldest institution for higher learning in California and the tenth-oldest university of...
(a Jesuit university
Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities
The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities is a consortium of the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities and two theological centers in the United States committed to advancing academic excellence by promoting and coordinating collaborative activities, sharing resources, and advocating and...
) in 2002 and in 2008 it was associated with the construction of Kalmanovitz Hall. It serves as the backdrop of the outdoor Ovila Amphitheater (37.7757°N 122.451°W), near an older Romanesque portal from Northern Italy.
Abbey of New Clairvaux
As early as 1955, Thomas X. Davis, now the abbot of the Abbey of New ClairvauxAbbey of New Clairvaux
The Abbey of New Clairvaux is a rural Trappist monastery located in Northern California in the small town of Vina in Tehama County. The farmland, once owned by Leland Stanford, grows prunes, walnuts, and grapes which the monks harvest from the orchards and vineyards to sustain the...
, saw the stones and pictured them reassembled as a monastery. On September 15, 1955—his first day in California—arriving by airplane to serve in Vina, California
Vina, California
Vina is a census-designated place in Tehama County, California. Vina sits at an elevation of . The 2010 United States census reported Vina's population was 237....
, at Our Lady of New Clairvaux, Trappists of the order known as Cistercians of the Strict Observance, his superior drove him through Golden Gate Park where they stopped to see the stones sitting among the weeds. From time to time in subsequent years, Davis inspected the stones to see that they were faring poorly, subject to weather and vandalism.
Leland Stanford
Amasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, industrialist, robber baron, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:...
, used to grow wine grapes and make wine. In 1994, the city approved with the stipulation that the building be restored accurately and that it be occasionally open to the public. The stones were transported in 20 truckloads to Vina. Inside an old brick barn used by Stanford to make brandy, the stones began to be fitted together, the walls laid on their sides on plywood.
Ground was broken in 2003 on the site of an orchard (39.9372°N 122.0632°W) next to the main cloister building. Architect Patrick Cole of Arcademe, overseeing the rebuilding project, said that there were more than half of the required stones for the chapter house, and more than 90% of the repeating-pattern stones needed as templates to carve replacements. Stonemasons
Stonemasonry
The craft of stonemasonry has existed since the dawn of civilization - creating buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone from the earth. These materials have been used to construct many of the long-lasting, ancient monuments, artifacts, cathedrals, and cities in a wide variety of cultures...
Oskar Kempf and Frank Helmholz used modern hydraulic lime
Hydraulic lime
Hydraulic lime is a variety of lime, a slaked lime used to make lime mortar. Hydraulicity is the ability of lime to set under water. Hydraulic lime is produced by heating calcining limestone that contains clay and other impurities. Calcium reacts in the kiln with the clay minerals to produce...
as mortar
Lime mortar
Lime mortar is a type of mortar composed of lime and an aggregate such as sand, mixed with water. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar, dating back to the 4th century BC and widely used in Ancient Rome and Greece, when it largely replaced the clay and gypsum mortars common to Ancient...
rather than making their own as was done in the Middle Ages. Helmholz said of the opportunity offered by the project that it was "something most stonemasons don't do in all their career." The strength of the building is doubled, with the stones supporting their own weight as designed, augmented by a framework of steel and concrete to hold them together when the California ground shakes. Contractor Phil Sunseri said that the building foundation was earthquake resistant as well; with a three-foot-thick (1 m) mat of concrete and steel underneath, "the entire building will move as one unit." When completed, the building will be the largest example of original Cistercian Gothic architecture in the Western Hemisphere, and the oldest building in America "west of the Rockies
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
".
Nearby Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
The Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was established in 1980 by homebrewers Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi.Located in Chico, California, Sierra Nevada Brewing is one of the top craft breweries currently operating in the United States. Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is the second best-selling craft beer in the...
partnered with the monks of New Clairvaux to make a series of Belgian-style beers under the Ovila Abbey brand. In late 2010, the beer producer mounted a website to tell about the making of the beer product line and the story of the restoration of the stones. Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman said he had long been interested in making a line of Belgian beers, and the abbey's project provided a good opportunity. The first product, a Dubbel
Dubbel
The dubbel is a Belgian Trappist beer naming convention. The origin of the dubbel was a beer brewed in the Trappist Abbey of Westmalle in 1856. The abbey had, since 10 December 1836, brewed a witbier that was quite sweet and light in alcohol for consumption by the paters. The new beer, however,...
, was released in March 2011, followed in July by a Saison
Saison
Saison is the name originally given to low-alcohol pale ales brewed seasonally in farmhouses in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium, for farm workers during harvest season...
and in November by a Quadrupel
Quadrupel
Quadrupel is the brand name of a strong seasonal beer La Trappe Quadrupel brewed by De Koningshoeven Brewery in the Netherlands, the only Trappist brewing abbey not in Belgium...
. Sierra Nevada has dedicated a percentage of the beer sales to assist in funding the rebuilding project.