Felipe Chaves’ landmark mausoleum in Belen (Part 1)

Don Felipe Chaves, of Belen, was one of the wealthiest residents of New Mexico in the late 19th century. His vast interests included investments in railroads, real estate, mining, freighting, retail sales, wholesale sales, banking, farming and sheep and cattle ranching.

Don Felipe did business in the United States, Mexico and Great Britain. He received as many as 40 pieces of mail per day, all hand-delivered by the Belen postmaster himself.

Privately, Chaves lent large sums of money to a wide range of influential people, including a territorial governor, New Mexico’s largest land owner and a number of his fellow merchants. It was said that his personal wealth surpassed the assets of many banks.

Chaves was so affluent that he became known as the “Millonario” or “Felipe de Oro” (Felipe of Gold). According to a local legend, to prevent rusting, he spread his gold out in his yard each week. Nearly every subsequent owner of the mansion has dug up the yard in search of any gold coins he might have left behind.

Although Felipe Chaves wisely invested much of his fortune, he also spent a great deal of his wealth on himself, his family and his mansion, located directly west of today’s Walgreen’s in Belen.

Expensive furniture, drapery, Brussels carpets and other lavish accessories were imported from Europe or transported by wagon or train from back east in the United States.

Loving music, Chaves purchased as many as seven pianos and an array of other instruments, from mandolins and violins to guitars and accordions.

Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling of each room. Even his outhouse was decorated with wallpaper and a carpet.

Owning an expensive, water-proof carriage, Don Felipe and his passengers never got wet when crossing streams or fording flooded rivers. He stored his carriage in a large carriage house northeast of his mansion, where Starbuck’s is located today.

Doña Josefa’s death

Don Felipe spared no expense on one event in particular, his wife’s funeral. Maria Felipa Josefa Chaves, his wife of 43 years, died in January 1899 after a long illness.

After losing one child in infancy, Felipe and Josefa had raised two daughters, Manuelita and Margarita, and one son, Jose, to adulthood.

Doña Josefa’s body lay in state in the main hallway near the entrance to the Chaves mansion. Sitting in a small room off to the side, Don Felipe received hundreds of mourners who came to pay their respects.

Newspapers described Doña Josefa’s gold-trimmed casket as “the finest ever seen in New Mexico.” Such caskets were reportedly only used for presidents of the United States.

Doña Josefa’s funeral was held on Jan. 23, 1899. A “perfectly arranged” funeral train carried friends, relatives and an orchestra from Albuquerque to Belen.

Doña Josefa’s funeral procession left the Chaves mansion for the Catholic church at about 11 a.m. Church bells tolled and the orchestra brought from Albuquerque played a solemn death march. Mourners followed the casket more than the half-mile distance.

From 2,500 to 3,000 men, women and children attended the funeral with “country people” coming from as far away as 100 miles.

Doña Josefa’s Funeral Mass at Our Lady of Belen Catholic Church was conducted by four respected priests of the Rio Abajo: Fr. Jean Baptiste Ralliere, of Tomé; Fr. Francois Gatignol, of Belen; Fr. P. Martin, of La Joya; and Fr. Anton Docher, of Isleta.

Doña Josefa was so admired for her charitable deeds that some claimed that if a flower was left on her casket for every good deed she had done for others “she surely would have slept beneath a wilderness of flowers.”

At 1 p.m., pallbearers carried Doña Josefa’s casket for burial in a large plot that her husband had recently purchased in the cemetery. As with most Catholic churches of this era, Belen’s cemetery lay directly in front of the church.

Building the mausoleum

It did not seem that Don Felipe could have honored his wife with a finer farewell. But then he did.

As early as Doña Josefa’s funeral, Don Felipe had spoken of building an elaborate mausoleum to house his late wife’s casket and venerate her memory. The building would be large enough to also include crypts for himself and his three children, now adults.

Don Felipe contracted a talented Italian immigrant named Angelo Detullis to design and build the structure he had in mind. By July, newspapers from as far away as Los Angeles reported the “monumental chapel” was “assuming shape rapidly.”

With a large work force engaged in the labor, Detullis hoped to finish his work by the end of the year, just as Don Felipe had wanted, to commemorate the first anniversary of Josefa’s death.

Much as he had done to furnish his mansion, Don Felipe procured material from across the country and overseas. Slabs of white marble were ordered from Vermont, while slabs of red stone, used in alternating levels, came from Arizona. The entire structure rested on a granite foundation.

Three 4-foot, 4-inch tall statues, representing the three greatest virtues — Faith, Hope and Charity — were made from marble imported from Carrara, Italy. Detullis placed the statues in large niches on the mausoleum’s front wall. The roof was made of half-inch slate.

Iron doors bearing the family’s insignia were made to order from an eastern foundry. An engraved sign above the door read, “Felipe Chaves, Built by Angelo Detullis, 1899.” For additional security, workers installed an ornate black wrought iron fence much like the one surrounding his mansion.

The mausoleum’s interior held “great charm and dignity” with a Carrara marble altar flanked by full-sized statues of saints. Six crypts fit below the floor’s surface. Stained-glass windows brought light in from the building’s sides.

Reflecting Don Felipe’s great love of music, he ordered a $2,000 ($76,000 today), 5-foot tall wooden music box from Paris. Placed in a prominent place within the mausoleum, the machine played “Rock of Ages,” “Lead Kindly Light” and other hymns when cranked by hand.

Transportation of the mausoleum’s music box, heavy materials and tall marble statues was only possible with the arrival of the Santa Fe Railway in Belen after 1880. Conveniently, the railroad’s depot was less than a mile from the structure’s construction site.

The mausoleum measured 17-by-25 feet. It stood 21.5 feet high. Its total cost equaled more than $12,000 (nearly $500,000 today).

Work was proceeding well when C.N. Glover, of Fort Collins, Colo., arrived to do stucco work on the building’s interior walls in October 1899. Glover, who had worked on New Mexico’s new territorial capitol and other impressive buildings in the Southwest, praised the mausoleum as “truly a work of art.”

When completed, the mausoleum stood facing east, directly in front of Our Lady of Belen’s church entrance. It dominated its surroundings, much as Don Felipe had dominated Belen’s economy throughout his more than 35 years in the community.

The mausoleum’s consecration

It was now time to consecrate — or officially bless — the finished mausoleum. As he had done with Doña Josefa’s funeral, Don Felipe planned every detail and spared no expense to make the event a success.

All went as planned until another tragedy struck the Chaves family.

News arrived from Denver that Don Felipe’s daughter, Margarita Chaves de Baca, had given birth to a healthy baby girl named Alva. Margarita and her husband, Vicente Baca, were heartbroken when the infant’s health quickly deteriorated. Alva died less than two weeks after her birth.

Distraught, Don Felipe realized that an elaborate event to consecrate the mausoleum was no longer appropriate. More sedate plans would have to be made.

Archbishop Peter Bourgade, of Santa Fe, arrived to lead the consecration on Friday, Sept. 14, 1900. The church leader was joined by Fr. Ralliere, Fr. Docher, Fr. Gatignol, of Belen, and Fr. G.M. Condert, of Bernalillo.

Don Felipe hosted a private banquet at his mansion, with “exquisite music” played on a piano by his daughter, Doña Manuela.

Three girls served the meal. Dressed in white dresses, the girls represented Faith, Hope and Charity, like the three statues that adorned the eastside edifice of the mausoleum.

Newspapers reported that a multitude of people arrived from Belen and the surrounding area to witness the consecration, making it one of the largest events in Valencia County history.

(Part 2 of this article will appear in next week’s News-Bulletin.)

(La Historia del Rio Abajo is a regular column about Valencia County history written by members of the Valencia County Historical Society since 1998.

The author of this month’s La Historia wishes to thank Filomena Baca, Larry Guggino Jr., Louis Huning, Margaret Espinosa McDonald, Sandy Schauer, the late Jim Sloan and Martha Trujillo for their generous help and kindness.

Opinions expressed in this and all columns of La Historia del Rio Abajo are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the Valencia County Historical Society or any other group or individual.)