St.Bernard De Clairvaux Church
The St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church is a 12th
century medieval Spanish monastery that was
built in Spain over 8 centuries ago. It was
shipped to America piece by piece with New York
City being the port of entry.
The story of this church started back in 1133
when construction began. It took eight years to
complete and was originally named Monastery of
Our Lady, Queen of the Angels. It was later
renamed after St. Bernard when he received
canonization
The monastery was sold around the beginning of
the 1800’s and used as an agricultural storage
facility. It would remain this way into the 19th
century until it was sold again to William
Randolph Hearst in 1925
Mr. Hearst, an American, decided to ship the
castle back to his home country piece by piece.
It required over 11,000 crates to fit all of the
blocks from the monastery (each carefully packed
with hay added for cushioning) and hours of
endless labeling to ensure it could be put back
together properly after it made it to the
States.
In a stroke of bad luck, there was quarantine
for foot and mouth disease in New York and all
the crates had to be unpacked and the hay and
crates burnt to avoid the risk of spreading the
disease. In the rush to get everything done
things were lost and mislabeled and the entire
project became a mess.
Mr. Hearst gave up on ever getting the chance to
put the castle back together in the 1950’s and
sold it instead. The new owners, Raymond Moss
and William Edgemon, transported all of the
crates south to Miami and reassembled it there.
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