A `Sanctuary Of Love' Full Of Bathtub Shrines

NORWICH, Conn. - Some folks collect paintings and others go for guns. Sal Verdirome has a thing about bathtubs.

Not just any bathtub will do, however.

"It has to be oval-shaped," he says. "You know, the old-fashioned kind with claw feet."

The 75-year-old retired construction worker has collected more than 50 of these gleaming white vessels over the past two decades. He uses them as homemade shrines in pursuit of his passion, the "Sanctuary of Love."

The sanctuary is located on the large terraced hill behind his home. It features a wide variety of sacred symbols and artifacts, including dozens of half-sunken tubs stood on their ends and used to display plaster statues of the Virgin Mary and other religious figures.

Verdirome considers the sanctuary to be an inspired work of art.

"It's an inspiration from God," he says as he proudly shows a visitor the fruit of his long, loving labor.

Verdirome, a devout Roman Catholic, has been creating the sanctuary since the early 1970s, doing most of the backbreaking work by hand.

"I put in the first tub back in 1972," says Verdirome, who grew up on New York's Lower East Side and moved to Connecticut after World War II. "Some of the stones in these terrace walls weigh more than 800 pounds. I spent an entire day on each one, hoisting them up the hillside with rollers and a come-along."

He won't discuss the moment during which he was seized by the vision that led him to transform his tangled, back-yard hillside.

But he doesn't mind telling you about his tubs, and from whence they came.

"They came from everywhere," he says. "Some were discarded on the street. Some I paid cash for, and some were donated. But they have to be oval, I don't want any square tubs."

One of the first things you see upon entering the sanctuary is a rendition of the Sea of Glass referred to in the Book of Revelations. The "sea" is made of chunks of green glass from a defunct thermos factory.

He is especially proud of the glass sea and of his version of the 14 Stations of the Cross, depicting the Passion and death of Jesus. He even has built a sepulcher, representing the tomb where Jesus was buried.

Verdirome says he's not even close to being finished with the sanctuary.

Among other things, he plans to mount the Ten Commandments, inscribed on bronze tablets, on one of the terrace walls.

Verdirome estimates he has spent thousands of dollars pursuing his vision. He does not accept cash donations but says anyone can finance or build a religious monument for his sanctuary, if it meets his standards.