The Ancient Spanish Monastery
In 1925, William Randolph Hearst purchased the Cloisters and the Monastery's outbuildings. The structures were dismantled stone by stone, bound with protective hay, packed in more than 11,000 wooden crates, numbered for identification and shipped to the United States. Soon after the shipment arrived, Hearst's financial problems forced most of his collection to be sold at auction. The massive crates remained in a warehouse in Brooklyn, New York, for 26 years. One year after Hearst’s' death in 1952, they were purchased by two entrepreneurs for use as a tourist attraction. It took 19 months and the equivalent of nearly $20 million dollars (in today’s currency) to put the Monastery back together. In 1953 Time magazine called it “the biggest jigsaw puzzle in history.”
Spirituality of a Chapter House
The church and chapter house had important and special roles in the monastic day and spiritual life of the monks. It was the place where the monks came to encounter God by listening to the Word that came through the Rule, talks, conferences, and sermons. Here also the monks committed themselves to God by the reception of the habit, making of first vows, and for the lay brothers, their solemn vows. Elections and appointments were also made in the Chapter, and the community also gathered here to receive distinguished visitors.
The monks reserved the best materials and their finest work for the chapter house and church
Today the Chapter House Today