Appreciating the simple charm of ‘old’ St. Mary’s Hall
| It’s not the Holiday Inn - but St. Mary’s Hall at Manresa has provided retreatants with extremely accomodating and surprisingly comfortable rooms for over 70 years. | |||
| A view with a room - St. Mary’s Hall, which was completed in 1845 and has provided comfortable lodging for retreatants since 1931, is in desperate need of repairs. The renovation project will not only increase the longevity of the building, but it will increase the comfort and convenience of retreatants. We expect the wonderful views from the outside looking in (ABOVE), and from the inside looking out (BELOW) through the screened windows, to remain very much the same. | |||
EVERY ROOM SEEMS TO BE ‘THE BEST IN THE HOUSE’
As much as I look forward to the planned renovation of St. Mary’s Hall, and as comfortable as I’m sure the modular housing will be during the construction project, I will one day miss the simple charm of the ‘old’ St. Mary’s Hall.
One retreat master said a while back that even though he was quite comfortable in his room in Loyola Hall, even he missed staying in St. Mary’s Hall. “With the exception of the lights and the air conditioner and all those sort of things, you could imagine yourself being there hundreds of years ago. The architecture lends itself to that,” he said. Equipped with only the bare essentials, the rooms in St. Mary’s Hall still offer everything you need in retreat accommodations. From the doorway you can see that the room is equipped with a single bed covered with a solid-color chenille bedspread. Later on, when you first dig in for the night, you will discover that it is outfitted with a mattress as comfortable as the one you sleep on at home, wrapped in crisply laundered sheets. Just above the bed is a lamp to facilitate reading just before you doze off. There is small desk in the room. If you had to pay bills on it or help your children with their homework, there might be a shortage of space. But here on retreat, it’s big enough for anything you need to do. It includes a comfortable chair, a readiNg lamp, pencil and paper, and reading materials including Jesuit periodicals and the Bible. Moving along, the next thing you notice as you make your way around the room might be the wash basin. With hot and cold running water, the cast-iron porcelain sink is flanked on one side with a small shelf for toiletries and a convenient array of freshly-cleaned terry cloth towels. Other conveniences include a mirror with a light above it, a towel bar, your standard toothbrush holder, and a disposable cup for rinsing. The low-pile carpet on the floor muffles the sound of the retreatant plodding across the floor above you. Looking up, up, (keep going!) up, the extremely tall ceiling reminds you that the building was erected eons before the welcome air conditioner was fitted into the wall below the window. Also on the ceiling, the smoke alarm and sprinkler system unobtrusively protect retreatants from fire hazards, and the light fixture softly illuminates the comfortable dimensions of the room. No matter which room I stay in, I am always convinced it is the best room in the house. Over the course of the years, I have stayed in rooms on the first, second and third floors. Each year I appreciate either the unique characteristics of the room and the view from the window or the privacy it provides; waking to see the sun rise or catching a glimpse of the moon after the lights are off. Some of the windows are around eight feet tall, and all are equipped with blinds. The depth of the window frame emphasizes the extreme thickness of the ante-bellum exterior walls. There is a place to hang your clothes, a sturdy wooden table designed specifically to hold your luggage, and a shelf full of warm blankets. An old-fashioned rocking chair provides another place to relax, to read, or to just look out of the window as you meditate, pray, and appreciate the day the Lord has made. I realize the repairs are necessary, and the results will be great, but I’m still going to miss the simple, if not timeworn charm of the ‘old’ St. Mary’s Hall. 