Over the weekend, we had the pleasure of visiting St. Bernard de Clairvaux Spanish Mission. It is an amazing place that offers a really unique look at history. The Monastery was built in Sacramenia, Segovia, Spain between 1133 and 1144. It was dedicated to the honor of the Blessed Mother and named “Monastery of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels,” then later renamed in honor of Bernard of Clairvaux, a famous Cistercian Monk. The Cistercian Monks occupied the monastery for nearly 700 years before the Cloister was seized, sold and converted into a stable and granary in the mid 1830s. That is where the story gets really interesting.

William Randolph Hearst, a famous American businessman, purchased the Cloisters and outer buildings in 1925. He had workers dismantle the structures, packing each stone in hay inside one of 11,00 wooden crates, intending to ship the entire Monastery home to the United States. The process would have been a smooth one, had the stones themselves been numbered in some way, but instead, the workers labeled the boxes. Enter the US Department of Agriculture, who realized that there was an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease in Segovia and, afraid that the crates would spread the illness in the US, they quarantined the shipment. During the quarantine, they broke open the crates and burned the hay, which was a possible carrier of the disease. Then they put the stones back- without ensuring they went into the correct crates.

Hearst suffered financial losses right at the time that the crates were released, forcing the entire Monastery to go up for auction in its disassembled form. The stones remained in a warehouse for 26 years before W. Edgemon and R. Moss purchased them. It was 1953, and they decided the Monatery would make a great tourist attraction. It took 19 months and 1.5 million dollars to put the pieces back together; the process was time consuming and there are still stones left over.

I highly recommend a side trip to the Monastery if you’re ever in the area. The story is fascinating and the scenery beautiful, so don’t miss it if you ever get the opportunity!