Hearst's Stones Still Cast Shadow at Golden Gate Park

By Andy Sywak

Behind the Succulent Gardens in the Arboretum, up a tiny hill from the Redwood grove, lies a weedy lot that spills into a chain link fence. At first glance, a bright blue porta-potty is the only noticeable landmark in this unmanicured part of the park. Lying before the portable toilet is a motley collection of stones, piled in no particular order. While many turn out to be common slabs of concrete, a couple of carved pillars catch the eye. Few would guess that these are the abandoned remnants of a building several hundred years older than San Francisco.

Neglected by the city for decades and unknown to many residents, an archeological wonder has been languishing in Golden Gate Park. Popularly called the "Hearst monastery stones" by locals, the messy piles belie a colorful history. Taken down stone by stone and shipped from Spain to San Francisco in 1931 after being purchased by William Randolph Hearst for a planned estate, these limestones are the disassembled remains of the Santa Maria de Ovila, a Cistercian monastery whose construction stretched from 1190 to 1220.

Since 1995, many of the stones have found a new home at the Abbey of New Clairvaux, a monastery of the Cistercian-Trappist order located in tiny Vina, California near Chico.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held on Sept. 14 in Vina to commemorate the monks' effort to rebuild the chapter house - one of the holiest parts of the 12th century monastery.

Called the Sacred Stones Project, the monks at New Clairvaux have employed a New York architect and two stonemasons for the reconstruction. According to Sandy Goulart, a spokesperson for the Sacred Stones project, $2.5 million has been raised for the project from more than 1,500 donors.

Hearst had earmarked the stones for his country estate on the McCloud River near Mt. Shasta but the plan was derailed by financial troubles. The stones were sold to the City in 1941 where they sat in warehouses before being placed behind the M.H. de Young and Asian Art museums for more than 40 years as the City debated what to do with them. Two fires severely damaged the stones and, after competing measures were discussed, the de Young gave New Clairvaux title to the stones in 1995.

"The monastery stones in and of themselves have no history in San Francisco except that they were the purchase of William Randolph Hearst and came into the City," said James Lazarus, executive director of the San Francisco Historical Society. "Over 60 years, when the City had possession of them, they clearly lost the civic will to do anything with them. I don't think there's great objection to having the stones relocated to someplace where the monastery can be recreated."

While the stones remained idle, a great many were used in constructing flower beds and retaining walls at the Strybing Arboretum. Stones from the monastery have been used in the Succulent, Fragrance and Library Terrace Gardens as well as at the Japanese Tea Garden and AIDs Memorial Grove.

Goulart said the Abbey will not be coming back into the park to get more stones, nor will they be extracting them from existing structures in the park. Instead, the monastery will purchase the limestone it needs for construction from a quarry in Texas.