In 1934, the estate was purchased by a scholarly religious order known as the Jesuits. This area became Alma College, a seminary where priests-in-training would seek heaven through devoted study and prayer.
The land along the ridgeline has been deeply admired and repeatedly altered—by wealthy estate owners beginning in the 1850s, then by the Jesuits of Alma College from 1934 until the 1950s. Midpen invites you to form your own connection with this landscape as you explore carefully-rehabilitated layers of past lives.
This shrine once included a statue of St. Joseph holding the infant Jesus and was built in the early days of Alma College, the Jesuit school of theology that operated here from 1934 to 1969. St. Joseph is the patron saint of Italians, and the shrine was likely erected by Italian Jesuit immigrants who built much of the Alma College complex.
