Ancient Spanish Monastery

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Ancient Spanish Monastery
National Register of Historic Places
Monastery and park

Monastery and park

Ancient Spanish Monastery (Florida)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
location North Miami Beach , Miami-Dade County , Florida
Coordinates 25 ° 55 ′ 45 ″  N , 80 ° 9 ′ 17 ″  W Coordinates: 25 ° 55 ′ 45 ″  N , 80 ° 9 ′ 17 ″  W
surface 4000 square meters
Built 1953-54
Architectural style Early Gothic , Romanesque
NRHP number 72000307
The NRHP added November 9, 1972
Entrance to the cloister
Cloister with inner courtyard

The Ancient Spanish Monastery (more precisely The Ancient Spanish Monastery , German translation Altespanisches Kloster ; also known as St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church or Episcopal Church of St Bernard de Clairvaux ) is part of a historical Spanish monastery from the 12th century, which from Dismantled in 1925 and rebuilt from 1952 in Miami-Dade County, America. The early Gothic and Romanesque style monastery buildings are the oldest in the United States .

Operated by Cistercians at the place of origin in Spain , the facility is now used by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America . It stands on 16711 West Dixie Highway in North Miami Beach .

history

The Sacramenia Monastery was founded by Alfonso VII of Castile and León and built near Segovia from 1133 to 1141 . At first the abbey was dedicated to Maria Queen (Santa María la Real) , later it was named after the Cistercian monk Bernhard von Clairvaux . Cistercian monks called from France formed the first community of the new monastery, the order worked here until 1839. The grandson of Alfonso VII, Alfonso VIII of Castile , also promoted the order several times in Sacramenia.

After a fire, parts of the monastery were rebuilt in 1641. Around the year 1839 the monastery was secularized , the active monastery life had to be ended and the complex was sold to a local farmer. From then on, the buildings were used as stables and grain storage.

Purchase through Hearst

The US publisher William Randolph Hearst acquired part of the former monastery buildings in 1925 with the help of a specialist in Spanish antiquities, Arthur Bynes, for $ 500,000: the cloister , chapter house , refectory and smaller side buildings. He had these buildings dismantled into their individual parts (33,000 stone blocks) and packed in around 11,000 up to 1.5 tons heavy, numbered wooden boxes. The former monastery church and other, smaller parts of the building remained in Sacremia in the possession of the Spanish owner and are still there today. The cost of dismantling the buildings, packing and shipping, and insurance came to $ 120,000.

The boxes were shipped to New York City . From there they should be forwarded to San Simeon in California , where Hearst wanted to have the plant rebuilt. Since the stones in the boxes had been packed in straw for protection , they were registered for quarantine ; Back then the foot-and-mouth disease had spread in the area of ​​origin and the possibly contaminated hay had to be burned on the instructions of the Ministry of Agriculture . The quarantine lasted three years; When unpacking and repacking, the box contents were no longer distributed according to the box numbering - assembling the buildings now seemed impossible, since the reconstruction was to take place according to the box numbers. Since Hearst also ran into financial difficulties as a result of the Great Depression , the boxes were stored in a warehouse in Brooklyn .

It was only in 1952, after the death of Hearst (1951), the boxes Yorker whose heirs sold to the New department store were Gimbel Brothers, Inc. passed. The monastery parts, valued at $ 50,000, were to be sold to the highest bidder at auction. The price had to be reduced due to a lack of demand; Eventually real estate agents Raymond Moss and William Edgemon of Cincinnati , Ohio bought the boxes for $ 19,000. The two buyers planned to rebuild near Miami to create a profitable tourist attraction there. The boxes acquired were transported to Port Everglades on a cargo ship in 1953 and from there by truck .

reconstruction

A former tree nursery in North Miami Beach was chosen as the location of the monastery to be built. Eight stonemasons worked on the reconstruction under the direction of Allen Carswell . Carswell had previously worked on the construction of the Cloisters Museum in New York, financed by John D. Rockefeller . Because of the problems with assigning the boxes to the blueprint, the reconstruction took 19 months and cost investors around $ 1.5 million. Many elements were placed arbitrarily, parts of other historical Spanish buildings were also used for optical reasons, such as the monastery of St. Francis in Cuéllar . Several original components from Sacramenia remained after the construction work was completed.

The Time Magazine described the reconstruction in 1953 as the biggest puzzle of all time ( "the biggest jigsaw puzzle in history").

Change of ownership

In 1954, the completed monastery of which was Monastery Gardens, Inc. opened. In 1961 Edgemon took over all shares in the company. However, it could not operate successfully as a tourist attraction. Edgemon had to take out a loan on the company in August 1964 to pay off a debt to James Ulrick. As a result, there were negotiations to take over Monastery Gardens, Inc. with the St. Bernard Foundation , founded under Bishop Henry Louttit , which was supposed to acquire the mortgage-encumbered facility for the diocese of the Episcopal Church of South Florida. Since the foundation first had to raise the necessary funds and there was also a legal dispute over the property between Edgemon and another creditor (Kelly), the takeover could not be completed until the end of 1966. The diocese was soon divided into three dioceses: Central Florida, Southeast Florida, and Southwest Florida; the Diocese of Southeast Florida took over the facility, but soon had to sell it again due to financial difficulties. Then the accountant and entrepreneur Robert Pentland Jr. (1899-1979), a member of the Episcopal Church, bought the monastery for $ 400,000 and donated it to the parish of St. Bernard de Clairvaux. Pentland is said to have justified his decision with the words: "It is not going to close until the Lord does it" (German: It [the church] will not be closed as long as God does not do it ).

today

The monastery is used for services and weddings. In the former refectory, which has been converted into a chapel, English and Spanish language services are held on Wednesdays and Sundays. In addition, the former monastery buildings are a tourist attraction and are open to visitors.

architecture

The facility, which is located on US Highway 1 (Biscayne Blvd) and the Royal Galdes Canal , consists of a park of around 4000 square meters, in which, in addition to the visitor center, a modern entrance gate and the cloister of the monastery with some smaller monastery extensions on the south side and the former refectory, which is now used as a chapel. The refectory adjoins the west side of the cloister and can be entered from there.

The entrance to the monastery is decorated with an elaborately decorated stone arch from the early Gothic. The coronation of Mary by angels is shown on a relief above ; A lion each on the left and right represent the kingdoms of León and Castile . There is also a historic monastery bell here. The arcaded cloister is about 4 × 35 meters long. Statues of the kings Alfonso VII and Alfonso VIII stand in two corners. In the center of the cloister courtyard there is a granite draw well. Today's chapel originally served as the monastery dining room and was initially used as a museum after it was rebuilt in Florida. The baptismal font used here is around 800 years old and comes from the church that remained in Sacramenia.

The park of the complex was laid out in the 1950s by members of the parish. It is supposed to be reminiscent of the Spanish horticultural art of the Middle Ages and with its linear structures and trimmed hedges differs from the park landscapes common in Florida.

The monastery has been a listed building on the National Register of Historic Places since November 9, 1972 .

Second Hearst Monastery

In addition to the Ancient Spanish Monastery in North Miami Beach, there is another Spanish monastery acquired by Hearst in the United States, which is a large part of the Óvila monastery . In 1931 the publisher bought it for $ 85,000 and had it shipped to San Francisco. The stones of the unrebuilt buildings, which were bought by a Cistercian order from the Museum of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 1994 , are stored in the open in Golden Gate Park . There about two thirds of the stones of the previous chapter house of Óvila were identified and from there ended up on the Vina Ranch of the Trappist Abbey of New Clairvaux in Tehama County , California , where the chapter house was reconstructed with the addition of new materials.

Web links

Commons : Ancient Spanish Monastery  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Adam Karlin, Lonely Planet Miami & the Keys , ISBN 978-1-74360-2-485 , Lonely Planet, 2014 (English)
  2. ↑ a b Ronald Hilton, Handbook of Hispanic Source Materials and Research Organizations in the United States , ISBN 9780804709989 , Stanford University Press, 1956, p. 164ff (English)
  3. ↑ a b Ancient Spanish Monastery , The Cultural Landscape Foundation (English)
  4. ↑ According to other information 351,874 individual stones, according to John Platero, Ancient monastery is being used again , September 19, 1984, Kentucky New Era (via Google News )
  5. ↑ a b Millionaire's 'Mite' Saves Monastry From Builders , September 23, 1973, The Victoria Advocate (via Google News )
  6. ↑ a b c d John Platero, Ancient monastery is being used again , September 19, 1984, Kentucky New Era (via Google News )
  7. ↑ Meredith P. Lillich, Studies in Cistercian art and architecture , Volume 1, ISBN 978-0-87907-8-669 , Cistercian Publications, 1982, p. 72 (English)
  8. ↑ Dimitris Theodossopoulos, Structural Design in Building Conservation , ISBN 978-1-13401-9-915 , Routledge, 2012 (English)
  9. ↑ a b c d John W. Wilkie, Trustee in Bankruptcy for William S. Edgemon, Bankrupt, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Kyle F. Brooks et al., Defendants-appellants, 515 F.2d 741 (6th Cir. 1975) , April 17, 1975, US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit - 515 F.2d 741 (6th Cir. 1975), US Law, Justia.com (English)
  10. ↑ Robert Pentland Jr., Florida business leader , July 31, 1979, St. Petersburg Times , p. 7B (via Google News )
  11. ↑ Caitlin Granfield, Sacred space for yoga class at Ancient Spanish Monastery in North Miami Beach , June 3, 2014, Miami Herald (English)
  12. ↑ a b Nick Moncy, The Ancient Spanish Monastery Is A North Miami Beach Gem That You Have To Visit ( Memento of the original dated February 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , August 21, 2015, Rise: Miami News (English)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / risemiaminews.com
  13. ↑ a b Mauricio Herreros, Spiritual Florida: A Guide to Retreat Centers and Religious Sites in Florida and Nearby , ISBN 978-1-56164-3-318 , Pineapple Press Inc, 2005, pp. 68-70 (English)
  14. ↑ Old Spanish Monastery in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed August 6, 2017.
  15. ^ Monks in California Breathe Life Into a Monastery From Spain . In: New York Times, January 10, 2013, accessed February 9, 2016