LA MESA — The adobe walls of San Jose Catholic Church contain a robust history, dating back to a time when the small town in southern Doña Ana County was part of Mexico.

For many decades those hallowed walls also have held too much water.

That's why church officials have teamed with area adobe experts: Together they plan to restore the mission-style building's structural stability and refurbish its interior — all while keeping the old-fashioned look.

"We want it to be recognized and recognizable," said Tom Baca, a deacon who hopes that, after the project, the San Jose Catholic Church can become a place of pilgrimage.

In the works for the past four years, the project officially starts Sunday when Las Cruces Bishop Oscar Cantú leads a dedication during a Mass to honor St. Joseph.

Monday two organizations specializing in building restoration, Cornerstones and Adobe in Action, will conduct a seminar to teach methods of replenishing adobe. As they instruct, some of the damaged areas will be repaired.

Aging jewel

About 160 years ago, workers gathered disputed dirt to form the adobe bricks that would become the famed La Mesa church's walls. In the mid-1850s, the U.S. and Mexico each claimed the Mesilla Valley. By the time the countries finally agreed on the boundary — signing what became known as the Gadsden Purchase — the church was nearly a year old. New Mexico was still almost 60 years away from statehood.

But it's not the age of its adobe that necessitates San Jose Catholic Church's mending, it's how those walls have been treated over the decades.

Builders believed for most of the past century that layers of concrete stucco best served to protect adobe, said Pat Taylor, a renowned adobe expert from Mesilla.

Only recently did they realize that such a rigid and nearly air-tight covering choked adobe, a durable material but one that must remain permeable so not to hold water for too long.

Taylor said what's apparently happening to San Jose Catholic Church is typical of many similarly composed buildings in the area.

"Moisture gets stuck in the walls," he said, adding it erodes the inner adobe and cracks the stucco.

Taylor said the slight discoloration ringing the base of the church's exterior wall suggests water damage. So do the prominent plaster cracks, most at pew level, inside the picturesque facility - that plaster was reapplied less than five years ago, the first sign Baca said, that something was wrong with their treasured church building.

"The adobes become like straws," he said, referring to the concrete-covered structure pulling water from the ground.

History lesson

Still present in the mind of Baca and other longtime parishioners is the late 1980s collapse of the church's bell tower.

They believe water eroded the tower, which overlooked what had once been the central part of La Mesa, now N.M. Highway 28 cuts through a couple blocks west of the church.

Luckily, Baca said, the church officials were able to rebuild the bell tower using adobe, keeping its look consistent and true to history. Nobody was injured in the collapse.

"This building was never meant to have cement," Baca said.

To fix that, Taylor said, workers must saw through the roughly 2-inch concrete shell enrobing the church, pulling off coffee table-sized squares of the undesirable material. Then they will examine the adobe beneath and make necessary repairs before covering it with more mud and a more forgiving yet strong lime plaster — a process similar to what Native Americans and early settlers used to treat adobe.

Taylor said eventually the adobe will regain its original wet-dry cycle.

Last spring he started his research into the building, removing large squares of stucco and plaster from the exterior and interior walls. After that preliminary work, Taylor said there doesn't appear to be deep damage to the walls.

"The church is not in danger of falling," he said. "But it's not going to survive more of these cement plaster applications."

Cost estimate

Baca estimates the resurfacing will cost $70,000. It's hard to place a time line on when it might be complete because of constant fundraising needed to pay for such a project, and the nature of the work.

"It's like a big mystery," said Taylor who has worked for nearly 30 years on historic building all over the world. "We document everything to see the story that's its telling us.

"We're not here to dictate the repair. We're here to follow the damage and let the wall tell us what it needs."

Taylor isn't alone in talking about San Jose Catholic Church as though it is alive.

Said Baca: "We want to make sure the walls breath — and we want them to breathe so they last."

For Baca, the building isn't quite a family member, but it seems to be more meaningful than an heirloom.

His son was baptized there. Before that, he and his wife married there. Her great-grandfather helped build those adobe walls all those years ago.

"This building is more than a building to the community," he said. "It's an anchor that itself contains the many lives responsible for the formation of the community and many generations of solid families whose lives were centered around the church and agriculture."

Added Taylor: "It's just one of these jewels within the Mesilla Valley. There's no reason why that building should be in disrepair."
