the crate-packing crew supplied. At one point, realizing that the stones were likely to be used in California as external cladding for structural steel walls, Steilberg suggested the facing surface of each stone be sliced to a "veneer" of the thickness of for easier packing and shipping, but Hearst wanted to retain the authenticity of the full-sized stones. Byne and Steilberg judged certain walls and utility buildings worthless and left them in Spain. Steilberg returned home at the end of March. Byne rushed the project in fear that it might be halted at any time by the authorities—Spanish law prohibited the removal of historic artifacts. However, the Spanish government was at that time in disarray and did not enforce the law. Government officials "simply looked the other way" as trucks hauled 700-year-old stones through Valencia to the docks. When King Alfonso XIII abdicated in April 1931, leaving the government in the control of the Second Republic, the new officials stopped the project. Byne's lawyer persuaded the Minister of Labor to allow the work to continue on the grounds that the project employed more than a hundred men and put money into the severely depressed economy. Doctor Francisco Layna Serrano of nearby Ruguilla had for years tried to save the monastery but had failed to interest the government in the expensive preservation proposal. Realizing that this was his last chance to document the place as its stones were being removed, he wrote a monograph of its history and included a site plan of the layout of buildings, written from memory. As a result of his efforts, on June 3, 1931, Santa María de Óvila was listed as a National Monument of Spain, or Bien de Interés Cultural (Cultural Property). Layna Serrano published his monograph in 1932. In 1933, the monastery's historic cartulary was brought to the University of Madrid and published; the original was archived at the University of Oviedo. By the time the dismantling was finished on July 1, 1931, some 10,000 stones weighing a total of were shipped on 11 different freighters traveling through the Panama Canal to San Francisco. In 1931 currency, the monastery project had cost Hearst about one million dollars. Spanish ruins Today, a few buildings remain of the original monastery in Spain. These include the winery or bodega, now the oldest surviving building on the site. This was built in the 13th century during the