Groundbreaking for a reconstructed 800-year-old chapter house at the Abbey of New Clairvaux will take place Sept. 14 with Auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Garcia participating in the ceremony.

The event will mark the middle phase of the “Sacred Stones” project that also includes the construction of a cloister, archival library, chapel and atrium. Eventually the Cistercian monks, known as Trappists, hope to build a new church at Vina.

The monks are reshaping — literally stone by stone — a piece of their medieval history at the monastery which is about 15 miles north of Chico.

The stones’ vagabond tale began in 1931 when newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst purchased part of the Spanish monastery of Santa Maria de Oliva. Built of hand-carved limestone blocks by Cistercian monks in the 13th century, the facility had been in private ownership since the 1800s.

Hearst shipped his dismantled treasure to San Francisco with plans to integrate it into Wyntoon, the family estate near Mount Shasta in Siskiyou County. Financial reversals deflated that dream. Hearst gave the stones to the city in exchange for the cancellation of a debt. Eventually they languished unused behind the DeYoung Museum.

For years Trappist Father Thomas X. Davis, the abbot of New Clairvaux, visualized bringing the stones to Vina where the monks would reconstruct the Santa Maria chapter house, a communal place of prayer and study. The museum trustees affirmed that vision, and in 1994 awarded the stones to the abbey.

Since then the abbey has raised more than $2.5 million for the project, and completed preparatory work on the stones.

Abbot Davis said restoration of the ancient edifice, the only example of Gothic Cistercian architecture in the country, will be significant to both the monastery and California.

The design of the chapter house was prevalent in European monasteries built during the Middle Ages. Using proportion, space and form, the style allows light and shadow to create an atmosphere of radical simplicity and harmony.

“The very structure of the building tries to say something about what we perceive the nature of God to be,” Abbot Davis said.

Using plans for reassembly that Hearst’s workers drew as they took the building apart, San Francisco Bay Area stonemasons Oskar Kempf and Ross Leuthard laid the chapter house out like a jigsaw puzzle on the floor of the monastery’s barn. With a specialized saw, they cut through blocks of limestone that closely matched the original color, and fashioned new stones to replace missing and damaged ones.

Professionals with ARCADEME architecture firm in Chico and WRMS Engineering in the Bay Area are drafting final plans to include construction elements that comply with current California earthquake standards.

But Old World artistry will ensure that the chapter house is historically accurate, said Kempf, who came to this country after his apprenticeship with his father in Germany.

“I often solve problems by remembering rustic ways of doing things,” he said.

As he moved his hand over a weathered limestone block, he seemed to be taking the pulse of the past.

“What I see first is the men who carved the stones. I know them, how they felt at certain points, and how they solved problems,” he said. “I understand their vision.”

After the hard labor of refurbishing old stones and creating new ones for over two years, he looks forward to seeing them reassembled into a chapter house.

“Putting it together — this is the fun part,” he said about the work that will be done under the direction of Sunseri Construction.

The chapter house will be another facet of the 580-acre monastery which is steeped in history. Originally part of Peter Lassen’s 22,000-acre Rancho Bosquejo, the land was purchased in 1881 by Leland Stanford who turned it into one of the world’s largest vineyards.

When the Trappists acquired Vina in 1955 from the Bernard Flynn family, whose descendants own and operate Pacific Farms in Tehama County, they harvested walnuts and prunes to support the monastery.

But the monks are returning part of the acreage to its vintage roots. The old winery, which currently provides storage for the stones, will hold wine produced and bottled on site once the newly-planted vineyards begin to yield a steady crop of grapes.

Although the monks’ living area isn’t open to the public, the rest of the monastery is. Individuals seeking spiritual renewal through private retreats arrange stays in Vina’s guest quarters. Most participants join the monks when they gather for prayer seven times a day, beginning with morning vigil at 3:30 a.m.

The monastic way of life is counter-culture in many respects, including methods of financing: The monks in this abbey don’t borrow money. Instead, they’re relying on private donations to finance the project.

Campaign coordinator Sandy Goulart said that numerous contributions have been received, including $100,000 this summer from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.

Many people offer donations to sponsor individual stones. Those gifts are often given in the names of children, grandchildren and spouses, or as memorials for deceased loved ones.

“So far we have donors from 39 states and five foreign countries,” Goulart said.

The “Sacred Stones,” as the monks refer to them, add a different perspective to Vina’s history. Abbot Davis said he anticipates the day when, reassembled as the Santa Maria chapter house, the stones again create a meditative place — this time in the heart of the Sacramento Valley.

For more information about the Abbey of New Clairvaux and the chapter house visit the Web sites: www.maxinet.com/ trappist and www.sacredstones.org.

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