By the autumn of 2012, St. John's College in Santa Fe will have 45 more beds to offer students, thanks to a new residential center that is being primarily financed by a St. John's graduate who became a renowned California wine maker.

The college commemorated the new building with a ceremony unveiling the cornerstone at 5:15 p.m. Friday. Warren and Barbara Winiarski, who made a $5 million gift to St. John's to help fund construction of the student-housing site, were on hand for the event.

"The two St. John's campuses (the other one is in Annapolis, Md.) are like Siamese twins with one soul and two bodies," Warren Winiarski said by phone Friday. "It's nice to think they are now more equal in that they are able to house 80 percent of the student body on campus."

The new building on the Santa Fe campus will in fact allow the college to house 80 percent, in comparison to the current 65 percent, of its student body.

"It's a 15- to 17-month construction project; we're about three months into it," said Jim Osterhold, vice president of St. John's College. "There are three segments to the center, with areas for classrooms, a commons room and an apartment for a senior resident who is a faculty member who will live in the dorm.

The total cost of the project is $11 million, Osterhold said. The Winiarskis and their Winiarski Family Foundation provided $5 million of that, with $4 million coming from other donors — all part of a capital campaign St. John's completed in 2008 in which the institute raised about $134 million.

An additional $2 million for the center was raised through bond money, he said.

The 25,000-square-foot building will be near the entrance of the campus, across from the existing lower dormitories.

"This is a major project in the life of this college and we're excited in terms of what it will bring to Northern New Mexico — additional students to this area and an enhancement of the programs we can offer them," Osterhold said.

Between 425 and 450 undergraduates attend the college. Freshmen are required to live on campus.

The Chicago-born Warren Winiarski graduated from St. John's in 1952 and moved to California in 1964. By 1970 he had opened the Stag's Leap Wine Cellars in Napa Valley, which he sold in 2008.

Winiarski has served as a board member for St. John's and still works as a tutor in the Summer Classics program at the Santa Fe campus, and this week is leading a seminar on Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

He said his other major contribution to St. John's was to convince the college to abandon its plans to open a third campus in Monterey, Calif., some years back.

"They bought the land and it was more of a liability than an asset, in my view," he said. "I was the chair of the feasibility committee that made the final determination that it wouldn't be a good idea. They stopped wasting — or using — time thinking about how to establish a campus in California, but the wealth of California came back in other ways."

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com