The spiral staircase of the Loretto Chapel is well known as a miracle because of its unique structure. It is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is a Gothic Revival style building with a mix of French spire and stained glass. It looks elegant like the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, just smaller. The construction of…

If you had traveled with the Marquis de Lafayette to the Piedmont region of Virginia in 1824, you would have been amazed to come upon a beautifully proportioned village being built in the finest tradition of Renaissance planning. Ten pavilions, connected by colonnades extending from a great building resembling the Roman Pantheon, rose impressively above…

In 1784 Thomas Jefferson found himself in France as our first ambassador. While he was there he fell in love. Arrested by its striking classical beauty, the patriot became smitten with a small Roman temple in Nîmes known as the Maison Carrée (square house). Describing it as “the most perfect model existing of what might…