Ave Maria Grotto
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Ave Maria Grotto
Ave Maria Grotto, in Cullman, Alabama, is the life’s work of Brother Joseph Zoettl. The Grotto is comprised of models of buildings, primarily religious ones, made with concrete, seashells, stones, costume jewelry and other miscellaneous trinkets. The buildings aren’t to scale nor are they particularly accurate or proportional. Still, it’s rather interesting to see.
The builder of the miniatures at the Ave Maria Grotto was a Benedictine Monk–Brother Joseph Zoettl, O.S.B. Born in Landshut, Bavaria in 1878, he was maimed in an accident that gave him a hunchback, but luckily it did not hurt his ability to bend over and build the miniatures. He came to Saint Bernard Abbey in 1892. After becoming a Brother in the Benedictine Order, he was appointed to the power plant for the Abbey, and while there he developed his hobby of building miniature shrines.
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