Celestial Room Staircases

Here is another installment on staircases in temples built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This time I'll be discussing celestial room staircases.

In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees;

And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage];

Doctrine and Covenants 131:1-2

Putting a staircase in the celestial room in a temple is such a great way to visually remind us of this principle.  I've only seen a few such staircases.  The most interesting ones are grand staircases leading to upper levels in a celestial room.  I only know of two.  Here are pictures of them:

San Diego California Temple Celestial Room

Portland Oregon Temple Celestial Room Staircase

I've never been in the San Diego Temple, but I love all the pictures I've seen of it.  I like the balcony level and the interesting curves, particularly in the railing.  I have been inside the Portland Oregon Temple once and it has a very classy, sleek, modern, luxurious look and feel.  I like how the staircase uses glass (with an etched pattern).  This keeps the room bright and light.  The brilliant white stone also is stunning on the staircase.  You enter the celestial room by walking under the middle of the staircase.  You can enter the staircase on either side and they meet in the middle. The staircase leads to a mezzanine level with additional seating.  This level has a door leading to sealing rooms and the "chapel" which is essentially an assembly hall.

Other temples have less grand, but still really nice celestial room staircases.  Below are staircases in the St. George Utah Temple and Salt Lake Temple.  Each leads to a sealing room.  The Salt Lake Temple staircase has a statue of Cupid as a symbol of love on the bottom post.

St George Utah Temple (left) and Salt Lake Temple (right) Celestial Room Stairs

There are other celestial room staircases that are essentially just exits, or sometimes small entrances to the rooms.  These can be seen in the original Logan Temple, the Manti Temple, London England Temple, Bern Switzerland Temple, and probably a few others.

Manti Utah Temple Celestial Room

 Those are the celestial room staircases that I am aware of.  Please comment and tell us about others I don't know about.  I really love celestial room staircases.  I wish there were more like San Diego and Portland which have the best ones, or even just ones like the St. George and Salt Lake temples have.  Hopefully as more and more temples are built, staircases will be included in celestial rooms once again.