Property Record
6957 Grotto Ave
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Rudolph Grotto Gardens and Wonder Cave |
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| Other Name: | The Grotto |
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| Reference Number: | 55904 |
| Location (Address): | 6957 Grotto Ave |
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| County: | Wood |
| City: | Rudolph |
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| Year Built: | 1919 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 1978 |
| Historic Use: | garden |
| Architectural Style: | NA (unknown or not a building) |
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| Architect: | Philip J. Wagner |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Historic Preservation. The back lot of St. Phillip's is dedicated to a complex of stone gardens and grottoes. Rudolph Grotto is a naturalistic sculptural environment and botanical garden created by the Reverend Philip Wagner over a period of more than three decades. Within the four-acre Grotto Gardens, meandering paths carry the visitor through a lush setting of trees, shrubs, ferns, flowers, and ivy, with constant changes in elevation giving the impression of a journey through a wooded mountain terrain. It is best visited in the summer, when the flowers are in full bloom. Wagner developed the grotto to fulfill a promise he had made to the Virgin Mary during a pilgrimage to the renowned shrine at Lourdes, France, to restore his health. In 1919, he began to develop a landscape plan, and in 1927, assisted by his lifelong assistant Edmund Rybicki, he commenced work on the first of many shrines: a replica of the Lourdes grotto consisting of a marble image of the Virgin inside a rocky oval. As naturalistic as this setting appears, it is entirely the product of Wagner's artistry. A lover of nature, he originally envisioned a natural setting on the side of a hill, but he had only flat farmland to work with. So he created a new topography. He laid out a path, and then, using rust-colored gossan, a locally quarried, volcanic-looking rock, he built caves and shrines at every rise and turn in the trail. The caves and niches vary in size from miniature to monumental, but each one contains religious statuary carved of Carrara marble. The central work in the Grotto Gardens is the Wonder Cave, a 50-foot-tall craggy hill constructed of gossan rock and concrete. Its surface is planted with a rich cover of flowers, vines, and other vegetation. The interior, moist and dark like a natural cavern, is an undulating concrete passageway that stretches one-fifth of a mile and in some sections measures less than 3 feet wide by 5 feet high. Around each curve appears a religious diorama, dramatically lit. Biblical verses and moral exhortations are spelled out in hammered tin spangles. Passing through the small, cave-like space, the visitor is meant to encounter each scene with a sense of awe, so that the overall impression is one of religious mystery. The cave’s path eventually emerges from the side of the artificial landform, reaching a fork. Visitors may then follow the path up and over the hill by twists and turns, or descend again into the Grotto Gardens. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |