The Abbey of New Clairvaux is a rural Trappist monastery located in Northern California in the small town of Vina in Tehama County.[1] The farmland, once owned by Leland Stanford, grows prunes, walnuts, and grapes which the monks harvest from the orchards and vineyards to sustain the community.
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The Abbey was established in 1955 when monks from the Abbey of Gethsemani sought to begin a foundation in California. The monks live an austere contemplative life of penance and prayer on behalf of the reparation of sins. Their order is called Cistercians of the Strict Observance.[2]
The setting is extremely quiet and the monastery is completely hidden behind a wall that separates the guest and extern quarters and the monastic enclosure. There is very little interaction between the monks and retreatants; however, guests are welcome to join the monks in the chapel to chant the Divine Office seven times per day, beginning with Vigils at 3:30am and ending with Compline at 7:35pm.
California Governor Jerry Brown is known to visit the Abbey. In 2009 Brown visited at the monastery before announcing his candidacy for California Governor.[3]
Currently, the community is in the process of reassembling what the monks call their "Sacred Stones," the limestone blocks from the 800-year-old chapter house (meeting room) of the Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria de Ovila that once stood in Trillo, Guadalajara, Spain. William Randolph Hearst purchased and dismantled the chapter house of the old Spanish monastery in 1931 and had the stones shipped to California, intending to include them in Wyntoon, a grand home he was building in remote Northern California. Instead, Hearst gave the stones to the city of San Francisco as part of an arrangement to abate taxes that he owed. The stones sat in San Francisco's Golden Gate park until 1994 when they were given to the abbey. The chapter house is being reconstructed outside the cloister of the Abbey of New Clairvaux and may be visited by the public any day. In October, 2008, the ancient chapter house's Gothic portal was completed. In 2009, construction on the interior of the chapter house began with Gothic columns rising to their capitals.[4]
In 2000, a vineyard was planted. Leland Stanford himself had a vineyard on the property as far back as 1881, and Stanford's winery building still stands on the grounds. The monastery began to sell its wine in 2005.