Santa María de Óvila is a former Cistercian monastery built in Spain beginning in 1181 on the Tagus River near Trillo, Guadalajara, about 90 miles (140 km) northeast of Madrid.

In Spain, the new government of the Second Republic declared the monastery a National Monument in June 1931, but not in time to prevent the mass removal of stones.

In this endeavor, the king was following a general strategy of establishing Catholic institutions on land he had recently won in battle from the Moors of Iberia.

[2] The Cistercian "white monks" (wearing undyed habits) first chose a site in Murel (now called Carrascosa de Tajo) on the Tagus, but after a few years, had to relocate to more fertile zone a few miles nearer to Trillo, Guadalajara, where a flat hilltop by the river commanded a modest view.

The central cloister was bordered on the north by the church, on the west by a barrel-vaulted great nave, on the east by the sacristy, the priory cell, and the chapter house, and on the south by the kitchen, the pantry and the refectory (dining hall).

[6] Because of its prosperity and the multiple expansion projects, Santa María de Óvila exhibited examples of every Spanish religious architectural style used from 1200 to 1600.

[12] The monastery's land holdings passed one by one into the hands of the new regional aristocracy: first the Count of Cifuentes, followed by Rui Gomes da Silva, Duke of Pastrana, and the Spanish Army.

The monks were forced to leave in 1820 because of confiscations by a new liberal government, but they returned in 1823 after King Ferdinand VII restored conservative institutions.

[19] In the early 20th century small trees were seen to be growing in the dirt packed atop the monastery roofs—the protective roof tiles had long since been taken down and sold.

[21] Beloso, director of the Spanish Credit Bank in Madrid, was the owner of Coto de San Bernardo in Óvila, which included expansive irrigated grain fields and forests surrounding the monastery.

[9][20] In 1925, Byne had bought Hearst the monastery of Santa María la Real de Sacramenia which was dismantled, crated and shipped to New York where it was stored in a warehouse in the Bronx.

Byne listed specific elements, mostly architectural details, to be removed, such as vault ribs, door frames, window embrasures, columns and capitals.

[9][20] After Hearst conveyed his enthusiasm for the project, Beloso sold Byne the stones for $85,000, including the cloister, the chapter house, the refectory and the dormitory for novices.

[6] Byne's lawyer persuaded the Minister of Labor to allow the work to continue on the grounds that the project employed more than a hundred men and put money into the severely depressed economy.

[6] Doctor Francisco Layna Serrano of nearby Ruguilla had for years tried to save the monastery but had failed to interest the government in the expensive preservation proposal.

Realizing that this was his last chance to document the place as its stones were being removed, he wrote a monograph of its history and included a site plan of the layout of buildings, written from memory.

[20] By the time the dismantling was finished on July 1, 1931,[6] some 10,000 stones weighing a total of 2,200 short tons (2,000 t) were shipped on 11 different freighters traveling through the Panama Canal to San Francisco.

[31] Hearst first bought the monastery intending to replace the family retreat at Wyntoon, on the bank of the McCloud River near Mount Shasta in remote Northern California.

[6] To prepare for the arrival of the Spanish stones, Morgan drew up plans with the monastery's chapter house serving as the castle's entrance hall, and the large church enclosing a swimming pool.

[2] With groundbreaking set for July 1931 and the last freighter carrying stones still in transit, Hearst stopped his grand plan for Wyntoon because his fortunes were too far reduced from the Great Depression.

[6] The city moved the crates from the warehouse to store them outdoors behind the museum and the Japanese Tea Garden, allotting only $5,000 for trucking and for building rough sheds and protective covers.

[6] Picking up the project in 1946, the city paid Morgan to construct a scale model of the complex of buildings which was to be the Museum of Medieval Arts,[6] a West Coast version of The Cloisters in New York.

[45] In 1999, some of the stones were used to construct an outdoor reading terrace adjoining the Helen Crocker Russell Library of Horticulture, part of the Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park.

[48] Davis's superior met him at the airport and drove him through Golden Gate Park where he stopped to show the new arrival the stones sitting among the weeds.

In September 1993, museum director Harry Parker joined with Davis to sign an unconditional permanent loan of the chapter house stones to New Clairvaux.

[2] Inside an old brick barn built by Stanford to make brandy, the stones began to be fitted together, laid flat on Burke's plywood templates.

"[48] The strength of the building is twice what it was in Spain, with the stones supporting their own weight as designed, augmented by an external framework of steel and concrete to hold them together when the California ground shakes.

"[36] The reassembled chapter house is the largest example of original Cistercian Gothic architecture in the Western Hemisphere,[49] and it is the oldest building in America west of the Rocky Mountains.

[36] Nearby Sierra Nevada Brewing Company partnered with the monks of New Clairvaux to make a series of Belgian-style beers under the Ovila Abbey brand.

[50] Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman said he had long been interested in making a line of Belgian beers, and the abbey's project provided a good opportunity.