Elegant meditation site planned at Guadalupe Shrine

LACROSSE, Wis. – The city’s Design Review Committee has been asked to approve a multi-million dollar proposal for a 66-guest Italianesque retreat house at the Shrine of Our Lady Guadalupe up Mormon Coulee. The retreat would be for Catholic pilgrims on overnight meditational visits. The facility would outclass any hotel within hundreds of miles. Guest rooms would be 600 square feet with padded kneelers for prayer. These quarters each would be finished with stained wood floors and walls. A ground-floor banquet room would have a 22-foot ceiling.  Three adjoining conference rooms would be paneled in decorative woods with floor-to-ceiling arched window. A roof terrace with limestone and tile would overlook the coulee toward the Mississippi River. Plans include a convent for nine nuns. No price tag appeared in documents to the city Design Review Committee. The retreat, like Shrine itself, would be privately financed through the Diocese of LaCrosse. The shrine, completed in 2008, took four years to build.

This no rustic retreat. The St. Diego Juan Retreat House would be elegant in scale and detail. Chandeliers hang from the two-story banquet room ceiling. Giant arched windows bring in the sun and the coulee landscape. The architect shows cloth-covered tables, each with fresh flowers, full-service china and heavy silver.